15/11/2011

WARNING: We have been made aware of continued questionable approaches to Shareholders by several companies operating out of New York; The Tate and Carver Consultancy, The Rockridge Consultancy and The Easton Consultancy to name a few. We believe these companies are operating a scam as they are offering severely inflated prices for shares and we have reported this. We advise Shareholders not to engage with these or any other suspicious companies.

In recent years, many companies have become aware that their shareholders have received unsolicited phone calls or correspondence concerning investment matters. These are typically from overseas based ‘brokers’ who target UK shareholders, offering to sell them what often turn out to be worthless or high risk shares in US or UK investments. These operations are commonly known as ‘boiler rooms’. These ‘brokers’ can be very persistent and extremely persuasive, and a 2006 survey by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has reported that the average amount lost by investors is around £20,000.

It is not just the novice investor that has been duped in this way; many of the victims had been successfully investing for several years. Shareholders are advised to be very wary of any unsolicited advice, offers to buy or sell shares at a discount or inflated price or offers of free company reports. If you receive any unsolicited investment advice:

* Make sure you get the correct name of the person and organisation

* Check that they are properly authorised by the FSA by visiting http://www.fsa.gov.uk/register/

* Report the matter to the FSA by calling 0845 606 1234 or use the online links below

* If the calls persist, hang up.

The FSA also maintains on its website a list of unauthorised overseas firms who are targeting, or have targeted, UK investors and any approach from such organisations should be reported to the FSA so that this list can be kept up to date and any other appropriate action can be considered.  Please note if you deal with an unauthorised firm, you would not be eligible to receive payment under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

You can also notify the FSA with regards to Unauthorised overseas firms operating in the UK by completing an online form at:
http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/doing/regulated/law/alerts/overseas.shtml

For Unauthorised UK firms please use the following online form:
http://www.fsa.gov.uk/Pages/Doing/Regulated/Law/Alerts/form.shtml

More detailed information on this or similar activity can be found on the FSA website:
http://www.fsa.gov.uk/consumer/

Please also see: http://www.sec.gov/answers/advancefeefraud.htm

10/10/2011

London, 10th October 2011.  Arcontech, supplier of “CityVision”, the leading vendor-independent real-time market data distribution, contribution and cross-platform connectivity software, has outlined its strategy for “adapter” technology, to support flexibility and increase customer choice of data vendor, technology provider and architecture.

At the FISD conference in Tokyo last month, Chandra Dass, Head of CityVision Sales for Arcontech asked some thought provoking questions and outlined their strategy for two-way adapters to provide the answers that many firms are looking for.

A major programme, in response to market feedback, has resulted in several significant enhancements to CityVision. Firstly, the core platform is now available on the operating systems typically prevalent in major banks and brokers – namely Microsoft Windows, Sun Solaris X86 and Linux. Secondly, adapter development now provides a flexible framework for integration at both the client and server level for direct feeds, RMDS, Bloomberg and Tibco RV. It also means that applications written using the CityVision API can run with little or no change in different environments, greatly reducing redevelopment costs. Thirdly, configuration has been increasingly automated, reducing time and complexity for component roll-out.  Finally, detailed user-features and interoperation capability such as Open DACS integration and “compatibility modes” provide for migration paths which reduce or eliminate cost and risk of change.

Andrew Miller, Managing Director of Arcontech said “In simple terms, this means CityVision components make interoperability between major technologies and environments within existing market data infrastructures easier and more powerful, enabling clients to realise true choice and benefit from vendor replacement strategies.

For example, the market appears to welcome various vendor initiatives in enterprise architecture and open systems, but a mass change from an incumbent vendor can be a difficult transition.  There are many internal systems and workflows that need to be considered. A controlled migration over months or years is likely to yield best results with lowest risk.  Close interoperability is needed and that’s where we expect our products to gain considerable traction.”

Components from the new range have already been licensed to several financial institutions, with installations in the UK, mainland Europe, USA and the Far East.

For further information please contact:

Arcontech Group plc
Andrew Miller, Chief Executive
Chandra Dass, Head of CityVision Sales
+ 44 20 7256 2300

12/07/2011

Arcontech Group plc (AIM: ARC), a provider of enterprise real-time software solutions to the investment banking and broking sectors, is pleased to announce a number of new contract wins by its Arcontech Ltd subsidiary for its CityVision market data distribution and AXE trading system products . The sales have been made to a diverse client base ranging from a smaller independent investment bank to a large international banking group.

The new business will generate revenues in excess of £1.4m over the next three years.

Andrew Miller, CEO of Arcontech plc commented: “We’ve put an exceptional amount into product and relationship development during the financial year to June 2011 and it is gratifying to see it bring success.  The combination of new and proven products, together with globalised support is attractive to an increasing number of firms where our advanced interfacing technology, coupled with independence, gives them choice and adaptability as they seek to improve performance whilst reducing costs and vendor dependence.

“We anticipate additional sales once the advantages of our technology become better known through these forthcoming implementations and as a result of our more vigorous sales and marketing programme.

Particularly exciting is that the new products, developed in cooperation with several major firms, provide ground-breaking interconnectivity between the major vendor platforms and are already attracting significant interest from other international firms.”

For further information please visit http://www.arcontech.com or contact:

Arcontech Group plc
Andrew Miller, Chief Executive
Richard Last, Chairman
+ 44 20 7256 2300
+44 1608 683 108

Northland Capital Partners Limited
Shane Gallwey
+44 20 7796 8823

23/06/2011

In recent years, many companies have become aware that their shareholders have received unsolicited phone calls or correspondence concerning investment matters. These are typically from overseas based ‘brokers’ who target UK shareholders, offering to sell them what often turn out to be worthless or high risk shares in US or UK investments. These operations are commonly known as ‘boiler rooms’. These ‘brokers’ can be very persistent and extremely persuasive, and a 2006 survey by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has reported that the average amount lost by investors is around £20,000.

It is not just the novice investor that has been duped in this way; many of the victims had been successfully investing for several years. Shareholders are advised to be very wary of any unsolicited advice, offers to buy or sell shares at a discount or inflated price or offers of free company reports. If you receive any unsolicited investment advice:

* Make sure you get the correct name of the person and organisation
* Check that they are properly authorised by the FSA by visiting http://www.fsa.gov.uk/register/
* Report the matter to the FSA either by calling 0845 606 1234 or visiting http://www.fsa.gov.uk
* If the calls persist, hang up.

The FSA also maintains on its website a list of unauthorised overseas firms who are targeting, or have targeted, UK investors and any approach from such organisations should be reported to the FSA so that this list can be kept up to date and any other appropriate action can be considered.

Please note if you deal with an unauthorised firm, you would not be eligible to receive payment under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

The FSA can be contacted by completing an online form at:
http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/doing/regulated/law/alerts/overseas.shtml

More detailed information on this or similar activity can be found on the FSA website:
http://www.fsa.gov.uk/consumer/

WARNING: We have recently been made aware of questionable approaches to Shareholders by a company operating out of New York called the Easton Consultancy. This maybe a scam and has been reported.

See also: http://www.sec.gov/answers/advancefeefraud.htm

26/05/2011

London and New York, 26th May 2011.  London based real-time market data systems specialist Arcontech and New York based West Highland Support Services (WHSS) are pleased to announce the appointment of WHSS to provide pre and post sale support for Arcontech’s best-of-breed real-time market data systems.

The agreement strengthens Arcontech’s 24/7 global support capability and broadens the range of WHSS’s expertise portfolio to include Arcontech’s CityVision product suite covering multi-vendor contributions, vendor independent real-time publishing to and from Excel, alternative distribution technology and integration with Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg market data platforms.

Andrew Miller, CEO of Arcontech said: “We are delighted to be working with West Highland.  We have been impressed with their knowledge in the market data space and their immediate grasp of our technology and the opportunities it presents for mutual business expansion. With increasing potential and number of installations in the New York area, it makes sense for us to partner with a specialist who can demonstrate a reputation and strong track record in the industry”

Together with support resources in Europe and Asia, Arcontech’s operation can now provide ‘follow-the sun’ support from centres in the local time-zone, coordinated by a global 24/7 helpdesk.

Steven Roe, CEO of WHSS added: “Adding Arcontech’s CityVision to our supported product set makes sense for us as a neutral provider of support services.  There is complete overlap in our target markets but no competition for business between us.  It’s a good fit.”

04/04/2011

London, 4th April 2011. Algorithmica Research AB and Arcontech PLC are pleased to announce that bi-directional connectivity between Quantlab and CityVision has been completed and has been made available to the marketplace.

The collaborative initiative allows Quantlab to subscribe to real-time data from CityVision sources, including internal contributors and pricing applications. Quantlab’s powerful real-time evaluation engine can then simulate various analysis and trading scenarios and publish the results to other users and destinations, including vendors such as Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg, via the CityVision real-time data distribution platform.

The integration has been achieved using the CityVision C++ API.

Commenting on the joint development, Andrew Miller, CEO of Arcontech said: “We are delighted to be working with Algorithmica. This is an excellent example of collaboration using alternative technologies to achieve cost savings and enhanced results. The direct connection to CityVision means that trading and analysis desks are now able to share data and derived results from Algorithmica’s powerful Quantlab product in real-time with little or no additional infrastructure and without incurring the costs often associated with other platforms.”

Niclas Holm, CEO and co-founder of Algorithmica said: “We were pleased that the development using CityVision was straightforward and swift. The connectivity makes Quantlab an even more cost-effective and versatile tool for creating quantitative analysis solutions, and we have in fact already begun deploying at our first mutual client, where Quantlab is used for automatic pricing and trading of corporate bonds. We look forward to working with Arcontech on many opportunities in the coming months.”

21/03/2011

London, 21st March 2011.  Following the release of the latest version in January, Arcontech is pleased to announce contracts with a number of new clients for its CityVision “Excelerator” add-in for real-time market data functionality within Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.

The clients range in size and function from a smaller UK hedge fund to the US based broker-dealer operation of a large international bank.

The new clients have been acquired following extensive evaluation programmes, during which many client suggestions were incorporated into the product, addressing some specific needs for deployment in mission critical positions.

Common factors leading to Excelerator being chosen over competitive products have been the speed and control of updates into and from the spreadsheet, plus the ease of deployment. Andrew Miller, CEO of Arcontech said: “In this age of ultra low-latency and DMA trading Excel still remains prevalent on the dealing desktop and its performance is truly important. Users report that Excelerator is significantly faster to get data into the sheet, which can mean the difference between hitting or missing an available price or quantity.”

The innate performance is a key attribute of Excelerator, adding value, for example, when connected directly to an RMDS platform. However, when coupled with other CityVision components and data sources, it is possible to radically reduce the time-to-trade, for example by monitoring news headlines for interest rate changes, and setting a trading trigger accordingly.  Speed of contributions from Excel is also important and users report a clear advantage over other products when using Excelerator.

The abilities to pop-out user configurable market data displays, including full ANSI inter dealer broker pages, save and restore layouts and ‘shred’ data back to the sheet with simple drag and drop, all add to viability of the Excel/Excelerator combination as a real-time market data desktop.

Miller added: “The value proposition is clear; Excelerator can reduce considerably the cost per dealer over bundled packages, particularly when contributions, internal data or direct feeds are important. It’s encouraging that we’re seeing take-up on both the sell-side and the buy-side.”