GFT acquires Colombian Sophos Solutions from Advent International

Stuttgart/Bogota — GFT Tech­no­lo­gies SE (GFT) acqui­res 100% of the shares in the Colom­bian core banking expert Sophos Solu­ti­ons S.A.S.. With Sophos, GFT beco­mes one of the top 3 provi­ders of IT services for banks in Latin America and also increa­ses its global deli­very capa­bi­lity. GFT acqui­res the company from Advent Inter­na­tio­nal, one of the largest and most expe­ri­en­ced global private equity inves­tors. The acqui­si­tion is a clear sign of GFT’s contin­ued focus on growth and profitability.

GFT gains a new foot­hold in core banking solu­ti­ons, AI and cloud moder­niza­tion, as well as addi­tio­nal part­ners and clients, inclu­ding Colombia’s major finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons. The company is expan­ding its presence to 20 count­ries, six of which are in Latin America: Brazil, Mexico and Costa Rica are now joined by Colom­bia, Chile and Panama. The combi­ned strength of the two compa­nies will result in GFT beco­ming one of the top three provi­ders of IT services to banks across Latin America.

Thanks to the more than 1,700 employees of Sophos, GFT’s global work­force is growing by almost 20 percent to more than 12,000. This is the largest number of employees that GFT has ever gained through an acqui­si­tion. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted at the begin­ning of Febru­ary 2024. In 2022, Sophos gene­ra­ted reve­nue of around 257 billion Colom­bian pesos (curr­ently around 60 million euros) and GFT global reve­nue of over 730 million euros.

“With this stra­te­gic acqui­si­tion, we are not only merging compa­nies, but multi­ply­ing poten­tial,” says GFT CEO Marika Lulay (photo © GFT). “It is a logi­cal conti­nua­tion of our profi­ta­ble growth stra­tegy. All aspects of Sophos are very valuable to us. From the new colle­agues, new compe­ten­cies and clients to the new part­ners for core banking solu­ti­ons such as Oracle Flex­cube. All of this leads to strong momen­tum for GFT in Colom­bia, the third largest Latin Ameri­can market, as well as expo­nen­tial growth oppor­tu­ni­ties in the Ameri­cas and beyond.”

Custo­mers bene­fit from exper­tise in core banking, AI and cloud modernization

Sophos is parti­cu­larly known for its exper­tise in the areas of core banking, AI and cloud moder­niza­tion as well as inno­va­tion and digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion. GFT’s clients will bene­fit from expan­ded deli­very capa­city and access to new exper­tise, inclu­ding core banking solu­ti­ons with Sophos’s estab­lished part­ners. For Sophos custo­mers, the acqui­si­tion means access to GFT’s large talent pool, exten­sive expe­ri­ence in successfully imple­men­ting cutting-edge tech­no­lo­gies, more part­ners such as Thought Machine and pre-built solu­ti­ons. All of this toge­ther leads to shorter time-to-market and effec­tive deli­very of services to all customers.

“We are proud to be working with the entire Sophos team at a time of strong growth for the company,” says Lucas Maru­landa, Direc­tor at Advent Inter­na­tio­nal. “Since our invest­ment in 2020, Sophos has stra­te­gi­cally scaled its plat­form through inter­na­tio­nal and regio­nal expan­sion, helping to drive tech­no­logy trans­for­ma­tion and moder­niza­tion in the finan­cial indus­try. We look forward to follo­wing the company’s contin­ued success.”

“It is a great oppor­tu­nity for ever­yone at Sophos to become part of GFT,” adds Felipe Villa, CEO of Sophos. “With the combi­ned exper­tise and global presence of Sophos and GFT, we comple­ment each other perfectly. This will enable us to better support our custo­mers in their digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion — great news for our employees and their profes­sio­nal deve­lo­p­ment, as well as for our custo­mers. We are grateful to Advent for taking our busi­ness to the next level.”

Canac­cord Genuity acted as exclu­sive finan­cial advi­sor to Advent and Sophos in connec­tion with the transaction.