SunGard/AvantGard, the world's largest supplier of treasury workstations, announced last Friday that it had reached an agreement with XRT Corp., a subsidiary of France's Cerg Finance, to acquire XRT's two high-end workstation brands, TWS and Globe$. With that move, acquisition-happy SunGard, with headquarters in Calabasas, Calif., has again bought an erstwhile rival to expand its portfolio of treasury workstation products, shrinking the number of vendors while enhancing the potential of investment in upgrades.

While SunGard technically bought the U.S., German and Belgian subsidiaries of XRT, it actually acquired the TWS and Globe$ brands–XRT's high-end treasury workstation products, their customer base and the rights to market those products anywhere in the world, explains Ken Dummitt, president of SunGard/AvantGard. According to Dummitt, SunGard secured three valuable assets in the deal: a prestigious portfolio of customers, a staff of talented people and good products that “complement our present offerings.” While he suggests that SunGard is likely to stretch its AvantGard infrastructure umbrella to cover the new XRT products, he admits, “We know and respect those products from competing against them. You don't learn everything about a new product until you get under the covers with it. But at this point, we see the XRT products as filling in gaps among our other AvantGard products.” With these latest additions, “those gaps in our treasury applications are filled,” he adds.

Now, SunGard is focused on expanding its AvantGard footprint into the payment space beyond treasury operations and is considering a range of buy-versus-build decisions about how to expand that offering, Dummitt explains.