Markit, an information services company, has agreed to acquire ACBS ClearPar from Fidelity National Information Services and said it will add the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.(DTCC) Loan/SERV Messaging Service to its electronic loan settlement platform.
ClearPar is an automated syndicated loan operations platform used for the settlement of par and distressed loan trades in the U.S. and Europe. Markit will integrate ClearPar with parts of its WSO portfolio management software to create an electronic loan settlement platform for buy-side and sell-side market participants. This, Markit said, will help reduce counterparty and operational risk in the leveraged loan market by improving loan settlement times.
Markit and FIS have also agreed to promote and integrate Markit’s loan pricing, data and settlement systems with FIS' ClearPar’s front office systems, SyndTrak and SyndTrak Online, for sales, syndication and deal site publishing.
Upon completion of the transaction, Markit will have more than 360 employees dedicated to the loan market and over 650 financial institutions as clients with over $1 trillion in corporate loans under management. The deal is expected to close by the end of the fourth quarter of 2009.
The Loan/SERV Messaging Service is a secure, automated network for the transmission, receipt and online storage of industry standard loan messages. The combination of this service with Markit’s loan settlement platform, Markit said, will improve communication between buy-side and sell-side market participants significantly. The DTCC will connect the new Markit platform to other existing and future Loan/SERV products for loan reconciliation and cash settlement.
The DTCC Loan/SERV Messaging Service is expected to be incorporated into the Markit loan settlement platform in the first half of 2010.
