SAS Institute Inc. Tuesday said it has bought a Canadian company to expand its risk management portfolio, particularly in energy and utilities markets.
Calgary-based RiskAdvisory
Inc., a privately held software firm founded in 1995, was acquired by SAS for an undisclosed amount. RiskAdvisory’s two main products, Energy BookRunner and TradeBlotter, will be added to SAS’s Risk Dimensions product line.
SAS has been building up its risk management and analytical software for some time, said SAS Canada president Carl Farrell. “”Over the last little while, we’ve gathered some more momentum in this field. I just wanted to bring this more into Canada and put some support back around the risk team in the U.S.,”” he said.
Toronto-based SAS Canada’s pursuit of energy markets, particularly in Western Canada, led to an interest in RiskAdvisory, which specializes in catering to that business. “”We came across (RiskAdvisory) at that time. They possess significant domain expertise in this field and we felt that the addition of that domain would enable us to take the market a little bit stronger.””
Jim Joyce, principal at RiskAdvisory, now a managing consultant with SAS Canada, said that RiskAdvisory’s customer base is split 60 per cent oil and gas and 40 per cent power utilities.
RiskAdvisory customers include EnCana Corp., SaskEnergy Inc., Suncor Energy Marketing Inc. and Portland General Electric Co.
“”I think really this is a continuation of our penetration into the energy market. We can certainly offer a bit more depth now in the energy market and our domain expertise is significantly enhanced,”” said Gary Love, head of risk management strategy for SAS Canada.
SAS Canada will keep the RiskAdvisory name and its product names for the forseeable future in order to take advantage of the company’s heritage in the energy market. An interface will be built between RiskAdvisory products and those of SAS software products. “”Existing RiskAdvisory customers shouldn’t see any difference in day-to-day support levels,”” said Farrell.
“”The products are actually very complementary to one another,”” added Love. “”The RiskAdvisory software is essentially deal capture and the Risk Dimensions products from SAS are essentially the analytical side of things, like scenario analysis.””
SAS will maintain the RiskAdvisory office in Calgary with a view towards integrating it into its own Calgary operations sometime in 2004. The RiskAdvisory business will be guided by SAS’s Risk Dimensions team in the U.S.
Earlier this year, SAS purchased Stamford, Conn.-based OpRisk Analytics, a provider of operational risk management solutions for the financial services industry.
Comment: info@itbusiness.ca