Nice Systems, the Ra'anana-based security solutions company, acquired Fortent, a New York-based anti-money laundering company, in a deal worth $73.5 million.

Nice Systems and its subsidiary Actimize on Tuesday announced the signing and closing of a definitive agreement to acquire Fortent, a leading provider of analytics based anti-money Laundering and financial crime prevention software solutions for the financial services industry, servicing clients such as Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, Mizuho, Royal Bank of Scotland and Scotiabank.

Nice will acquire Fortent in an all cash transaction for a total consideration of $73.5 million. The deal is expected to be accretive on a non-GAAP basis starting first quarter 2010, excluding acquisition related expenses and amortization of acquired intangible assets as well as certain business combination accounting entries.

Under the terms of the agreement, Nice will be acquiring Fortent's Compliance and Risk Management business. Fortent will become part of Actimize which continues to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Nice, with the Fortent team becoming an integral part of Actimize.

"Actimize has established its clear leadership position in the financial crime market, compliance and real-time fraud prevention market. Fortent has built a strong technology and business throughout the years, with a top-tier financial services client base. We are extremely excited about the combination of Actimize and Fortent and believe that our customers and partners will benefit given the breadth and depth this acquisition brings to Actimize's financial crime, compliance and risk management platform," said David Sosna, Chief Executive Officer of Actimize. "I am pleased to welcome Fortent employees to the Actimize family. Our joint customers and partners will benefit from a top notch industry leader offering them the most advanced and comprehensive technology platform backed by the largest dedicated professional services and support organization."

Sosna added that with limited overlap in customer base and complementary analytics technology, Actimize clients will now include the majority of the world's largest banks and all top ten global banks. They will benefit from the broadest, most comprehensive solutions and from a robust service and support organization. Furthermore, Actimize, which is now expected to be a $100 million business in 2010, will continue to leverage Nice's presence within thousands of financial institutions worldwide to further accelerate market presence.

"With Fortent joining our successful and growing Actimize business, we are further solidifying NICE's strategy of being the global enterprise-wide analytics powerhouse for the financial services industry," said Haim Shani, Chief Executive Officer, Nice Systems Ltd.

Shani continued, "by combining Actimize's strength and Nice's interaction analytics, we are now best positioned to help our clients, which include thousands of global financial institutions, address the anticipated wave of new regulations."

Fortent, headquartered in New York, and previously known as SearchSpace, was founded in 1993 and is the pioneer of modern statistical-based Anti Money Laundering (AML). Fortent is known for its AML deployments and expertise within the world's tier-one financial institutions and for its advanced statistical profiling analytics technology. The company's solutions have been endorsed by the American Bankers Association (ABA), and are the de-facto standard for top-tier financial institutions worldwide. Fortent's solutions, deep profiling technology and best practices will become part of Actimize's solution portfolio which, following the acquisition, will include AML transaction monitoring, Customer Due Diligence and Know Your Customer; real-time cross-channel fraud prevention across payment, banking and employee activities; market abuse and trading surveillance; and enterprise case and investigation management. Actimize will continue to support and invest in Fortent's AML business in parallel to its own, and gradually augment and integrate the two.