CGI today announced that Sofinov, a subsidiary of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, has realized a conversion option of its investment in Solfitech, comprised of 1,029,000 preferred shares and 771,000 common shares, against 1,507,856 shares of CGI at a price of $1.19 per share (reflecting the three share splits which have taken place over the past nine months), based on the terms agreed upon at the time of Solfitech's launch two years ago.
In 1996, CGI and Sofinov jointly launched their Solfitech venture to market services for portfolio management systems to the financial community across North America. Solfitech has annual revenue of $15 million and its order book totals more than $50 million. Effective today, CGI will consolidate Solfitech's results into its own.
CGI and its Solfitech subsidiary will continue to provide information technology services as applied to portfolio management systems. The Caisse de dépôt et placement's information technology activities, which have been handled by Solfitech, will soon be merged into CGI. Solfitech was awarded a five-year contract to provide the Caisse with such information technology services.
"By merging these activities into CGI, we will be able to take advantage of the company's strong reputation in the North American financial services sector," said Pierre Vinet, Senior Vice-President at CGI. "Given the current deregulation in the financial sector, it is advantageous to merge Solfitech's solutions into those of CGI."
CGI is the largest Canadian-owned independent information technology consulting firm and the 6th largest in North America. With the acquisition of Bell Sygma, CGI will have more than 7,500 professionals compared with 4,000 currently, and a revenue-run rate of approximately $1.1 billion. The company's backlog is worth $6 billion.
CGI provides end-to-end IT services and business solutions to some 2,000 clients throughout North America and internationally. CGI's shares, which are listed on the Toronto and Montreal stock exchanges under the GIB.A symbol, are included in The Toronto Stock Exchange's TSE 300 Composite and TSE 200 indexes.
For more information:
Ronald White
Public Affairs
CGI
(514) 841-3200
