SS&C Buying Thomson's PORTIA

It has been known for some time that Thomson was shopping their PORTIA suite of products. Well, we have just learned that SS&C Technologies has agreed to acquire it for $170 million This is huge news for the industry.

I have speculated that SS&C might be one of the firms that might acquire them, as they have a history of buying others products (for example, acquiring Financial Models). The irony is that Thomson, too, has operated in this mode for the past couple decades.

I believe it was shortly after 9/11 when PORTIA had a major layoff, and began rethinking the appropriateness of this software in their long term strategy. After a few years, they seemed to conclude that it was better to move forward, and began to pump some money into their products, including performance measurement. Then last year we learned that Thomson was once again "shopping" PORTIA. We look forward to seeing how this progresses. Both SS&C and Thomson have been clients of The Spaulding Group for years, and we wish our colleagues the best of luck.