Bloomberg ploughs an additional €240m into PolarLake

Bloomberg has provided its loss-making Irish business PolarLake with €240.3 million in fresh equity.

Recently filed documents show the company founded by billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg, was allotted 26.7 million ordinary shares in its subsidiary in late August in exchange for the cash injection.

PolarLake was bought by the financial data giant for a reported $25 million (€22.6 million) in 2012 but was allowed to continue to operate as an independent business unit within Bloomberg.

"Bloomberg provides enterprise order management and data solutions to its clients globally. Bloomberg PolarLake is the centre of excellence for the data management layer of these solutions and is integral to their success," Gerard Francis, global head of enterprise data told The Irish Times.

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“We continue to see excellent adoption of these solutions by our clients, and continue to innovate and invest in the next generation of data management services,” he added.

Losses

The latest publicly available accounts for PolarLake, show accumulated losses at the enterprise software company, rose to more than €100 million in 2017, up from €85.9 million a year earlier.

The data management software provider, which spun out from Irish technology company Xiam in 2001, reported pretax losses of €14.2 million in 2017 as turnover rose to €10.3 million.

PolarLake’s auditor Grant Thornton said in a note included in those accounts that “a material uncertainty exists that may cast significant doubt on the company’s ability to continue as a going concern”.

John Randles, the Limerick man who led the company from 2006 onwards, including after its sale, left PolarLake in 2017. He is now chief executive of Galway-headquartered data firm Siren, which last week announced a $10 million (€9 million) Series A funding round to help it further develop products and expand into new markets.

PolarLake, which is now led by founder Warren Buckley, employed 128 people at the end of 2017.