Euronext expands it´s acquisition spree with iBabs

In recent news, reported here at fintechwebnews.co.uk, the European exchanges operator Euronext has extended it´s recent acquisition history with the purchase of a majority stake in Dutch company iBabs. IBabs is an online portal for corporate boards and was acquired by Euronext for €30.1 million.

Euronext will take a 60 percent stake in the Dutch company whose revenue in 2016 was €5.9 million. iBabs made earnings of €3.8 million before tax, interest, depreciation and amortisation, with first half revenues up 29% year on year.

Euronext already owns a similar company that supplies webcasting and other investor relations tools and wants to expand it´s existing company to lessen Euronext´s dependence on earnings from share trading and avoid general market instability.

The rapid expansion of Euronext

Back in May, Euronext decided to turn it´s attention to the usually bank-dominated world of currency markets. Euronext broke into the foreign exchange market with the acquisition of FastMatch for an initial sum of $153 million. This sum bought Euronext a 90% stake in FastMatch, making them the majority shareholder by a long way.

“The acquisition of FastMatch breaks new ground for Euronext, through expansion into the FX market which is the world’s largest traded asset class,” said Stéphane Boujnah, chief executive of Euronext.

In the last 2 years, Bats Global Markets and Deutsche Börse, Euronext´s 2 main rivals, have also made similar moves by acquiring assets in the usually bank-dominated market.

Diversifying to increase stability

In the wake of financial crisis, many companies have chosen to diversify into different areas other than stocks and shares trading. Foreign exchange or FX is a $5.1 trillion exchange market, opening up possibilities for companies like Euronext to begin building a more stable company in the event of another financial crisis.

Euronext´s recent partnership with software company Algomi is also a big move to diversify with the impending changes to the European economic landscape with the UK´s departure from the European Union. We have written before on fintechwebnews.co.uk about Brexit. Brexit creates much uncertainty for the European Union and companies operating in the area need to think of plans for stability, especially in the coming years.

For more fintech news, stay tuned to www.fintechwebnews.co.uk for all the latest developments.