Hamilton, Bermuda-based Accenture will pay an undisclosed sum to acquire the contracts and the majority of employees of Zurich, Switzerland-based Systor, which provides a range of IT services including IT consulting, systems integration, application hosting, application management, as well as software development.
The privately held company employed a total of 1,835 people at the end of 2001, but now employs a total of 620 people, of which Accenture is reportedly taking on 520.
Systor operates across 10 offices in Switzerland, Germany and the US, with specific focus on the banking and financial services sectors, and counts UBS, Credit Suisse, Commerzbank, Bank Sarasin, Deutsche Bahn, Deutsche Postbank, Hewlett-Packard, Morgan Stanley Capital, and UPAQ among its customers.
Systor was formerly part-owned by Accenture’s IT outsourcing rival Perot Systems, which acquired a 40% stake in 1995. Systor traces its roots back to 1970, and became the IT services arm of Swiss bank UBS following its merger with Union Bank of Switzerland in 1998. This resulted in UBS becoming the largest customer for Perot Systems at that time.
However, in January 2000 Perot sold its stake in Systor for approximately $55m, with the suggestion that UBS was bringing a greater portion of its IT services back in-house. Perot insisted that revenue from UBS remained healthy, but the divestiture of the business to one of its main rivals Accenture now suggests that the Perot relationship could soon be phased out.
Source: Computerwire
