Computershare, the Australian global share registry, has acquired the software and intellectual property assets of EFA Software Services, the troubled Canadian trading and clearing systems software developer, for an undisclosed sum.

In acquiring EFA's Equator trading system and Horizon settlement system, Computershare would be complementing its existing trading system, X-stream, said Iain Saville, European managing director at Computershare. The acquisition of the software, which is used primarily by small exchanges, would broaden Computershare's market reach from the small to the very large, he said.