NEC buys Switzerland’s Avaloq for CHF2 billion

The deal will allow the Japanese technology group to offer cloud services acquired through the merger combined with its own biometrics and data analysis products to financial institutions and governments. Keystone / Shizuo Kambayashi

Japan’s NEC has agreed to buy Avaloq Group AG - Switzerland’s largest software provider to banks – for CHF2 billion ($2.2 billion).

The Japanese technology group will acquire Avaloq, Europe’s top provider of financial asset management software, from Avaloq’s founder and employees and private equity firm Warburg Pincus, which has a 45% stake and engineered the sale.

Avaloq, whose customers include Deutsche Bank and HSBC, reported sales of CHF610 million last year, 70% of which came from Europe.

The deal will allow NEC to offer cloud services acquired through the merger combined with its own biometrics and data analysis products to financial institutions and governments.

The Japanese corporation has spent the last decade restructuring unprofitable units that lost business to price-competitive Asian rivals, selling its semiconductor, personal computer and smartphone units.

NEC said it will target Japan, where financial institutions have been slow to move online and new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has pledged to modernise outdated government systems.

“Talking to NEC’s top managers it became clear to me, that they share my ambition for Avaloq to continue to shape the future of the financial industry by continuing to invest heavily in R&D,” Avaloq founder Francisco Fernandez said in a statementExternal link on Monday.

“But I also sensed the cultural fit, caring about customers and people, striving for excellence and highest quality standards, for which ultimately Switzerland and Japan stand for.”