RTS to Acquire First Futures Software in India

FRANKFURT, Germany and PUNE, India, May 24, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- RTS Realtime Systems Group (RTS), a leading global trading solutions provider headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, today announced that it has signed a letter of intent and entered into exclusive negotiations to acquire First Futures Software Engineering Pvt. Ltd. (FFS), a high-end technology solutions provider in Pune, India. The transaction marks RTS' first acquisition of another company since its founding in 1992.

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The move follows the RTS announcement in April of plans to open the firm's first office in India to service a growing client base in the country. The acquisition enables RTS to gain a highly skilled and experienced development team in India and a complementary, state-of-the-art global product suite, while substantially increasing the distribution potential of FFS products and services globally.

"We are delighted to bring the talented team at FFS into RTS and to enable our respective clients all over the world to benefit from the powerful combination of robust technology, connectivity and broad trading solution capabilities," RTS CEO Steffen Gemuenden said.

RTS offers Indian trading and brokerage firms the ability to connect to India's major exchanges, including the Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd. (MCX), the National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange Limited (NCDEX), the National Stock Exchange of India Limited (NSE), the Bombay Stock Exchange Ltd. (BSE) and the recently launched United Stock Exchange of India Ltd. (USE). The firm's algorithmic trading solutions, RTD Tango and RTD Tango Trader, help market participants trade in multiple asset classes as well as capture trading opportunities and manage their risk.

Gemuenden added:  "We serve many of the world's most demanding and elite financial institutions, exchanges, proprietary trading firms, low latency and high-frequency trading firms as well as commodity supply chain management firms. It was critical to us that any integration meets our stringent standards of high-performance, user-friendly and value-added technology, and we believe FFS is the ideal partner."

Yann Senecheau, FFS Co-founder and Managing Director, said:  "The acquisition by RTS gives us the ability to expand our products on a global scale and leverage the technology each firm has developed. Our development and support center team in India can offer tremendous resources to the growing RTS elite client base in the country and globally."

About RTS Realtime Systems Group

RTS (www.rtsgroup.net) delivers high-performance, end-to-end technology products and services across asset classes and continents to elite financial institutions.  The firm is one of the world's leading providers of ultra-low latency, high frequency, robust algorithmic trading solutions.  RTS offers standardized low latency connectivity gateways to 130+ exchanges and execution venues worldwide.  In addition, the firm provides proximity hosting and co-location services for high-speed, ultra-low latency access to 65+ venues via its global data center network.  RTS has offices in Amsterdam, Chicago, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London, Mumbai, New York, Singapore and Sydney.

About First Futures Software

First Futures Software (www.firstfuturessoftware.com) is a technology solutions provider with expertise in building and implementing high-performance innovative software products and solutions, with a focus on financial markets and trading workflow optimizations.  FFS is a leading provider of electronic trading solutions, low latency time and high reliability, specializing in execution management systems, order management systems, best execution and trade lifecycle automation, direct market access (DMA), algorithmic trading, ultra low latency trading, trading system modeling and optimizations, charting solutions and visualization tools, market and trade data analysis tools, market and exchange simulations, market data distribution systems and customizable trading front-ends.  The firm is located in Pune, India.

SOURCE RTS Realtime Systems Group; First Futures Software