Leeds transport software firm makes acquisition in Dublin

The Leeds-based firm announced that the deal comprises an initial cash payment of £1.9m which will be funded out of its cash reserves and the issue of 68,762 new ordinary shares in Tracsis to a value of £600,000.

An additional payment of approximately £1.7m will be made on a euro for euro basis to reflect the net current asset position of the business on completion and will be finalised in due course, Tracsis added.

An Additional contingent consideration of up to £1.5m is also payable subject to Icon Group achieving certain financial targets in the three years post acquisition.

Icon Group, established in 1994, is an interdisciplinary geoscience company specialising in Earth Observation (EO), Geographical Information System (GIS) and spatial data analytics.

The business employs around 60 full-time staff, all of whom will remain with the business post transaction.

Icon Group will be integrated with Tracsis' existing Data Analytics/GIS solutions provider Compass Informatics to create an Irish-based Data Analytics centre specialising in providing location-related technologies and analytics solutions and services to government and commercial organisations.

The acquisition of Icon Group adds EO capabilities that enhance the group's offering in the growing market and has a customer base that is complementary to Tracsis'.

The combined Irish business will have around 130 staff and will work across a variety of sectors deriving most of its revenue from regulated industries including transportation, asset management, environmental and utilities.

For the year ended 31 December 2020, Icon Group generated revenue of £2.8m, pre-tax profit of of £800,000 and had net assets of £2.9m.

Chris Barnes, CEO of Tracsis, said: "We are delighted to have completed this transaction which extends the group's existing capabilities in Data Analytics and GIS into Earth Observation (EO) and strengthens our ability to deliver leading edge projects to clients in Ireland, the UK and across the European Union.

"This is an important milestone in our strategy of growing our 'big data' service offering across a range of regulated industries including transportation.

"We welcome the Icon Group team to Tracsis and look forward to future successes together."

Tom McHugh, founder and CEO of Icon Group, said: "The Icon Group, one of Ireland's largest processor of Earth Observation (EO) data, has been a trusted supplier of EO and GIS services to longstanding clients in Ireland, and delivers work critical to regulatory compliance on subsidy schemes paying out €1.6 Billion per annum using EO and GIS tools.

"We look forward to significantly adding to the spatial data analytics capability of Tracsis and Compass Informatics."

Gearóid Ó Riain, managing director of Compass Informatics, said: "This is a great opportunity for our combined teams to be part of strategic growth in the location technologies sector, and we look forward to working with the Icon team to deliver this"

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