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Access Intelligence begins shopping spree with £2.4m acquisition
SOFTWARE specialist Access Intelligence has embarked on its promised shopping spree with the £2.4m acquisition of public sector software services provider Ether-Ray.
A week ago York-based Access, which supplies software and computer services, said it was on the lookout for acquisitions after moving into profit.
Access said the acquisition of London-based Ether-Ray would strengthen its software-as-a-service (SaaS) proposition.
Ether-Ray's MARCOMM product provides on-demand, hosted software for the corporate communications teams within the public sector. Its CODEX product is an online contacts database of journalists and media professionals.
Ether Ray's turnover for the year to August 31 2008 was 888,000, up from 564,000 in 2007, generating a pre-tax profit of 380,000, up from 217,000 in 2007.
Michael Jackson, executive chairman of Access Intelligence, said: "Ether-Ray is one of the market leaders in this public sector niche, servicing around 25 per cent of local authorities and counting universities, NHS organisations, police authorities, charities and government agencies among their clients."
He added that Ether-Ray has a strong team with specialist knowledge in these sectors and said the acquisition is in line with its plans to focus Access Intelligence on SaaS.
"Ether-Ray has good synergies with our existing businesses and we see a number of significant cross-selling and up-selling opportunities with other companies within the Access Intelligence group of companies," he said.
Last week Access, which develops and sells software to local authorities, emergency services and government departments, said acquisitions would be targeted to complement its three key divisions which include compliance, procurement and contract management, and media relations and PR.
Mr Jackson said: "We are seeing a good flow of potential deals and plan for acquisitions to remain at the heart of this buy-and-build strategy."
The firm said that in the six months to May 31, pre-tax profits rose to 198,774, from an adjusted loss of 175,000 in 2008. Group turnover rose by 38 per cent to 2.6m from 1.9m for the same period last year.
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