The CTRM Blog

Brady PLC has t confirmed that the recently announced share placing was ratified by shareholders at a General Meeting held in London on 21 December, allowing the acquisition of Viz Risk Management (”Viz”) to proceed.

Gavin Lavelle, Brady CEO, said, “We see this as a transformational deal for Brady and it is another important step towards becoming the definitive global partner of choice for trading, risk management and settlement solutions across all commodities and energy products. This is our third acquisition in eighteen months and we have established a successful track record of fast and efficient integration of acquired companies. I am confident clients will quickly see tangible, long-term benefits from this latest acquisition, particularly as Viz’s Elviz ETRM is the leading solution for trading European electricity, gas, coal and emissions.”

I met with Syseca in Amsterdam at EMart initially and was recently provided a demonstration of EDIS2, its software solution for European scheduling and notifications. EDIS2 appears to be a highly usable piece of software designed to help trading firms deal with the complexities of European energy markets. The company has plainly put a lot of thought into usability and configurability. The question is – how did they do this in a new product?

We have now released the 2010 Non-Energy CTRM Vendor Perception Study report and it is available as a free download in the Reports area of this blog and on the UtiliPoint website.

Background

The non-energy CTRM vendor perception study proved to be an arduous undertaking with very low initial response rates which meant that the surveying component took considerably longer than anticipated. In the end, the survey comprises 49 valid responses from a geographically diverse group of respondents. The sample has a bias towards physical traders of agricultural products and also a bias towards companies already using CTRM software (the replacement market). Nonetheless, it provides some important data about the CTRM software market outside of energy.

Introduction
Brady PLC, the leading supplier of trading and risk management solutions for metals and commodities, has announced its intended acquisition of Viz Risk Management (“Viz”), a major European provider of risk management and trading solutions to the energy markets, with a focus on electricity, gas, emission certificates and coal. The acquisition will make Brady the largest European provider of specialist integrated trading and risk management solutions to the global metals, commodity and energy markets and propel it into a top six position globally based on revenues. The deal is anticipated to complete in December this year.