US FINTECH SS&C announced it had passed all the regulatory hurdles yesterday in its £1.24bn swoop for the British tech firm Blue Prism.

The next step in the takeover process will be a court hearing on March 14 to ratify the decision before the last day of trading on 15 March.

The shares are set to delist from the London Stock Exchange the following day, ending six years of trade.

Warrington-headquartered Blue Prism is a key player in the intelligent automation industry and has over 2,000 clients across the world, including a range of Fortune 500 firms.

The takeover talks first made headlines late last year when SS&C was caught in a billion-pound bidding war with fellow US firm Vista Equity Partners. This drove the UK company's share price up and built momentum around the deal.

However, it was the financial services specialist SS&C who came out on top against Vista, increasing its offer, which represented a 53 per cent increase on the share price first offered.

At the time, Blue Prism chief Jason Kingdon said the combination with SS&C would offer access to "significant capital resources and investment in R&D alongside access to SS&C's extensive 18,000 customers". It would crucially give it access to a whole new market.

Meanwhile, in SS&C's fourth quarter earnings last week, chief exec Bill Stone said in his statement that the pending acquisition would "improve our workflows", as his company invests "tremendous amounts".

Whilst SS&C has flagged that it intends to maintain Blue Prism's London HQ as a UK robotic process automation centre, the move represents the ongoing trend of UK firms being snapped up by foreign companies.

Stocks in Blue Prism were up nearly one per cent yesterday, closing up 0.87 per cent.

(c) 2022 City A.M., source Newspaper