NICE Systems Ltd. (Nasdaq: NICE; TASE: NICE) has acquired another firm, one day after its $11 million purchase of Israeli company Hexagon. NICE has bought anti-money laundering technology developer Fortent for $73.5 million.
At the end of July, when NICE reported its second quarter results, CEO Haim Shani told "Globes", "We have an organized list of companies with which we are in contact all the time. Now the situation is more stable, so there is greater willingness to take risks on an acquisition." Barely one month later, Shani showed that those were not empty words.
NICE will be acquiring Fortent's compliance and risk management business, and consolidate the company with Actimize, which continues to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of NICE. The Fortent team will join Actimize.
Actimize will continue to support and invest in Fortent's anti-money laundering (AML) business in parallel to its own, and gradually augment and integrate the two.
NICE will acquire Fortent in an all cash transaction. The deal is expected to be accretive on a non-GAAP basis starting first quarter 2010, excluding acquisition related expenses and amortization of acquired intangible assets as well as certain business combination accounting entries.
New York-based Fortent, previously known as SearchSpace, was founded in 1993 and is a pioneer of modern statistical-based anti-money laundering. Fortent is known for its AML deployments and expertise within the world's tier-one financial institutions and for its advanced statistical profiling analytics technology.
Actimize CEO David Sosna said, "Actimize has established its clear leadership position in the financial crime market, compliance and real-time fraud prevention market. Fortent has built a strong technology and business throughout the years, with a top-tier financial services client base. We are extremely excited about the combination of Actimize and Fortent and believe that our customers and partners will benefit given the breadth and depth this acquisition brings to Actimize's financial crime, compliance and risk management platform. I am pleased to welcome Fortent employees to the Actimize family."
NICE shares closed at $28.02 yesterday. Its shares on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange were up about 2% by mid-day.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 1, 2009
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