FIS seeks to boost financial software portfolio with $9.1B Sungard acquisition

The deal, announced Wednesday, ends SunGard's bid to go public. The Wayne, Pennsylvania, company filed for an initial public offering in June, about 10 years after being acquired by a group of private equity firms. The firms that purchased SunGard for approximately $11 billion in 2005 include Bain Capital, Silver Lake Management and Blackstone Group.

Some of the firms involved with the 2005 buyout were also SunGard customers. The vendor's software covers a range of financial services functions including tax and compliance, insurance, retail banking and retirement administration. SunGard's annual revenue totals $2.8 billion.

Meanwhile, Fidelity National, based in Jacksonville, Florida and better known as FIS, provides banking and payments technology and services.

SunGard recently teamed up with Google to develop a prototype cloud system that could store several years' worth of stock and financial trading data for analysis by U.S. regulators and stock traders. The project is part of an effort to win a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission contract that entails using big data to bring more transparency to financial markets.

FIS will assume SunGard's debt, which it plans on refinancing. The combined business will have more than 55,000 employees and is expected to record around $9.2 billion in annual revenue.

The merger is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to close in the fourth quarter.

Fred O'Connor writes about IT careers and health IT for The IDG News Service. Follow Fred on Twitter at @fredjoconnor. Fred's e-mail address is fred_o'connor@idg.com