OPTIONS IT ACQUIRES BNP PARIBAS HEDGE FUND TECHNOLOGY UNIT

Posted September 21, 2009

NEW YORK – High-performance hedge fund and brokerage technology provider Options IT has acquired the hosted co-location hedge fund outsource technology business of the prime brokerage division of BNP Paribas, including the technology infrastructure responsibilities for some BNP Paribas hedge fund clients, who will use Options IT’s Core solution.

As part of the deal, Options IT has also acquired regional data centers in California, Texas and New Jersey. The three data centers complement the firm’s 12 existing data centers across the US, the UK, Europe and Asia. Options IT has also acquired two regional offices in California and Texas and added IT engineering, management and support staff to its US operations. Exact terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“During the past 18 months, we’ve seen a tremendous shift among financial markets participants looking to expand the scope of their global business while minimizing their technology and IT maintenance costs,” says Nigel Kneafsey, Chief Executive Officer, Options IT. Our Infrastructure-as-a-Service model provides clients with an optimal solution – a robust, flexible and cost-certain platform on which to execute their global business strategies.”

Options IT Core provides a fully hosted global business technology infrastructure, eliminating the cost associated with building and maintaining essential business technology internally. All clients will continue to be BNP Paribas prime brokerage clients and will remain on their prime brokerage platform. The client transition will be a seamless integration onto Options IT PIPE, which supports the Core solution as well as a full suite of global market data and high-frequency, low-latency trading infrastructure solutions.