• For a deep dive into what is going on at Fidessa, click here. WatersTechnology spoke with 16 current and former Fidessa employees, Ion’s Domhnall McCormack, users of the Fidessa platform, and dozens of other industry experts to get a better feel for what has happened inside of Fidessa in the year since the acquisition. 

At least 400 employees have left Fidessa in the 12 months since it was acquired by Ion Group, according to six employees of the British financial software company, five of whom left recently. These sources—all of which held managerial positions and are still in contact with former colleagues—agreed that 400 is likely the minimum, with one former manager putting the figure as high as 500.

On July 25, 2018, when the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) approved the deal, Fidessa’s staffing was about 1,750-1,800, according to three senior executives who worked at the company at the time. (Several outside websites peg the total employee count at 1,700-1,750.) Since then, WatersTechnology has learned there have been around 300 voluntary resignations at Fidessa, and around 100 redundancies, although three sources said those numbers could be higher. Each source interviewed for this article says that a major contributing factor for many of the resignations was the late payment of bonuses.

July saw the most recent round of redundancies within the company, which affected about 70 people in the London office. One source said there were roughly 30 to 40 layoffs in the US office. One senior employee, who managed an entire department, believes that Ion plans to reduce headcount at Fidessa to around 1,200.

In an internal note obtained by WatersTechnology, Ion management said it was using company performance reviews and rankings to select employees for redundancy, and a maximum of 20 years’ service would be taken into account. In the note, more than 200 positions were reviewed in London, and of that, 23 positions—or about 10%—were earmarked as “possible redundancies.” The source says that they are not sure if those 23 positions were included in the 70 London redundancies, which will be completed in the next week, they say. 

At the senior level, sources say that most—if not all—of Fidessa’s operating board, which reports into the board of directors, have left, as have a significant number of senior managers at the level below the board. John Hamer, Fidessa’s former chairman, and Andy Skelton, its former chief financial officer, have left the company, according to LinkedIn profiles and sources, while Chris Aspinwall, the former CEO, is no longer with the company, according to sources. Hamer, Skelton and Aspinwall were also members of the board of directions.

As part of the terms of the Ion offer, the five non-Fidessa executives on the board—Richard Longdon, Ron Mackintosh, John Worby, Ken Archer and Ishbel Macpherson—resigned as directors of Fidessa as of August 3, 2018. 

A spokesperson for Ion Group declined to comment for this story. A spokesperson for an agency that represents Fidessa said the vendor declined to comment for this story.

A Winding Path

Fidessa earned its reputation thanks to its extensive trading network, analytics and compliance tools, and its order management system, which helped it to create the proverbial front-to-back trading environment through its Fidessa Investment Management System (IMS). As a result, at the beginning of 2018, several suitors came calling.

On Feb. 21, 2018, the boards of both Fidessa and Geneva-based software company Temenos announced in a joint statement that an agreement had been reached to sell Fidessa to Temenos for £1.4 billion in cash. On April 5, 2018, Fidessa confirmed that there were two potential competing bidders: Ion and SS&C Technologies, the latter of which never materialized as an official bid.

On April 20, 2018, it was announced that the Temenos deal had been scrapped due to a competing offer from Ion of £1.5 billion ($2.1 billion). In a same-day statement, Temenos said the group did not revise its offer, nor would it, and the proposed acquisition would lapse on April 28, 2018, in accordance with terms. About three months later, the FCA approved Ion’s acquisition of Fidessa.

Multiple reasons were cited for the resignations, but one that everyone interviewed for this article pointed to was Ion’s handling of bonuses, which were slated to be paid on Feb. 15. WatersTechnology has seen an email, dated Feb. 13, in which Ion’s European head of human resources, Jill Powell, told staff they would have to wait to receive their bonuses until April.

“Unfortunately, while a lot of people have worked very hard to meet the February pay run target, I regret to inform you that this will not be possible and it now looks likely that where applicable, and subject to individual performance considerations, the 2018 variable compensation will be paid in April,” the email said.

Ultimately, compensations were not paid until May, by which time, sources say, employees eligible for bonuses had already left. 

This is a developing story. If you have any additional information, please reach out to the author, Rebecca Natale: rebecca.natale@infopro-digital.com.

With additional reporting by Anthony Malakian.