Fenergo to take on extra 300 staff as it invests €30m in expansion

Irish fintech company Fenergo is to take on an extra 300 people before the end of next March to bring total headcount to about 1,000 as it moves into new sectors.

The company has invested €30 million back into the business as it looks to expand into new segments such as asset and wealth management.

The move comes as the fast-growing company announced a doubling of revenues for the second year in succession, and as it rebounded from a €2.4 million pretax loss to record a €2.6 million profit gain.

Fenergo, which was spun out of Irish tech veteran John Purdy's Ergo Group in 2009, provides software solutions for corporate and institutional banking clients, including HSBC, UBS, BNY Mellon, Scotiabank, Bank of Montreal, BBVA and RBS.

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The company invested almost €10 million in research and development last year.

With ambitions to launch an initial public offering by 2020, Fenergo is targeting turnover of €100 million by 2019. This year it recorded revenues of €58 million for the 12 months ending March 31st, 2018, up from €30 million a year ago and €18.7 million in 2015.

"Ultimately our approach is about mutualising the cost to be compliant and so regulators and banks love us. Between that and the digital transformation journeys that financial institutions are on, it means our technology is in demand," chief executive Marc Murphy told The Irish Times.

He said an increasing proportion of group revenues are coming from recurring software fees.

“We’ve emerged as the market leader in the client lifestyle management space for financial institutions, and are now looking to go beyond this,” said Mr Murphy.

Reputation

“We’ve built our reputation in the corporate and institutional banking space. However, a number of our clients told us they want to bring our solution into commercial, business and retail banking, so we’ve launched teams in those areas and also added an asset management and private banking division.”

Mr Murphy said Fenergo, which added more than 200 employees to its workforce over the last year to bring headcount to 700, said employee numbers should hit the 1,000 before the end of its next financial year. “We’re building a multinational in our home town and that is something I’m extremely proud of.”

Looking ahead, Mr Murphy forecast another strong year for the company.

“We continue to go great guns, and are expecting another high-growth year in FY19. We’re tracking large double-digit growth for the first half of that, and will likely be up 50 per cent versus the same six months last year.”

Ergo sold its shareholding in Fenergo for $75 million in August 2015 to Insight Partners and Aquline Capital, who subsequently has invested a further $9.5 million in the company.

“We’ve great backers especially with Insight, who have a big cheque book and recently closed a $6.5 billion fund so have plenty of firepower to put to work and they are always encouraging us to grow faster and acquire businesses, so I’ve no shortage of funding,” said Mr Murphy.

“We’re looking at one or two acquisitions on a weekly basis. I guess we are in the phase where we haven’t fallen in love yet, but we’re definitely looking to do so.”