Wilco Acquires India Software Development Firm to Further Gloss

Clearance & settlement solutions providers, Wilco International acquired the Indian software development operation of D.E. Shaw in mid July. The purchase comes with 105 developers-including a five-person management team–with expertise in development in the financial services arena, says Craig Spendiff, COO of Wilco. Wilco had been looking for a source of technical talent for a long time. The D.E. Shaw group was a good fit because of its experience in financial services. The firm honed in on India because the country is renown for its skilled developers, it’s an English speaking country and it offers a low cost development environment, Spendiff says, though he was quick to add that the latter was not the main reason. He declined to comment on the terms of the agreement.

Prior to the acquisition Wilco was looking to set up an operation in India to give the firm the ability to extend production. Currently Wilco is limited in what it can do as far as new development, but adding 100 new developers will change that, Spendiff notes.

The first project will be to work on the next release of Wilco’s Gloss. The developers are already working with Wilco on developing interfaces to regulators and exchanges in Japan for example. The firm will help Wilco enter new markets as it will have a team dedicated to new development. He was not sure when the new release would be rolled out, but said he thought it would be by the end of the year.