SUNGARD TO BUY MAJORITY STAKE IN GL TRADE

Posted August 1, 2008

PARIS – Financial services software and processing solutions provider SunGard plans to acquire a majority stake of 64.5 percent in financial software solutions company GL TRADE for 41.70 euros per share, which puts the value of all of GL TRADE’s share capital at 400.7 million euros.

“NYSE Euronext has supported our strategy and been a fair partner for the last 15 years,” says Pierre Gatignol, Executive Chairman of GL TRADE. “With the current consolidation of the exchange industry, GL TRADE would be better positioned to pursue its strategic objectives and serve its customers as part of SunGard, particularly given SunGard’s footprint in North America. This proposed project and the fair value of our work would reward 20 years of dedication to our clients.”

Harold Finders, division chief executive officer of SunGard’s Financial Systems business, adds, “GL TRADE has great products and connectivity, a highly complementary geographic reach and an excellent international management team. GL TRADE plays a vital role in the trading and administration of securities globally, and the credit for that belongs to its employees. We look forward to working together.”

Lehman Brothers is acting as financial advisor to SunGard in this transaction along with Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley is acting as financial advisor to the main shareholders.

“This would be a great pick up for SunGard,” says Sang Lee, Managing Partner at industry consultancy Aite Group. “Although [SungGard's] BRASS has dominated the US sell-side OMS market for many years, it has clearly lacked the international coverage and multi-asset coverage that would be needed to compete on a global basis. GL certainly brings those capabilities to the table as well as a diversified regional client base which would again help SunGard push aggressively into the global OMS market. GL has also been working on its buy-side focused EMS platform, so that would be another added bonus in addition to GL’s expansive global connectivity network.”