The surprise £100m takeover of the parent company of document management vendor VersionOne is positive news for the channel, claims Julian Buck, general manager of Version One. “Being part of a larger technology group can only be good for us – there is no conflict of interest in the short term and day to day, its business as usual.”
In early February, Advanced Computer Software Plc acquired Redac Holdings Ltd, owner of COA Solutions, from Alchemy Partners for a total consideration of £100m. COA has supplied software solutions to the public and private sectors for more than 25 years, with in excess of 5,000 direct and indirect customers in healthcare, public and emergency services and the private sector.
Aggressive
COA Solutions Ltd, formerly CedarOpenAccounts, has been an aggressive acquirer itself over the last few years. Alongside its Version One acquisition two years ago, COA has bought HR Systems Specialist ASR Computers Ltd, Business Intelligence vendor BI Inform, Inca Planning Software and eProcurement Specialist Belmin.
Even though COA was a direct organisation, Buck states that VersionOne was always pretty autonomous and had grown it channel extensively over the last years to include over 100 partners. With ACS, the strategy he believes will continue and sights new offices recently opened in South Africa and America as a clear sign of its commitment.
New owners, Advanced Computer Software Plc, is a provider of software and IT services to the primary care sector. Through its subsidiary Adastra, ACS services circa 95 percent of Out-of-Hours operational hubs and 50 percent of NHS walk-in clinics in England. Adastra’s software interoperates with more than 100 other IT systems serving both the primary care and the acute parts of the NHS.
With ACS heavily entrenched in NHS IT, Buck believes “[the takeover] could offer cross selling opportunities across new markets for our partners – whatever vertical market opens up, we won’t rule ourselves out of it.”
A secondary ACS product automates the flow of information between the National Nurse Helpline Services and the operational hubs of the Primary Care Trusts. Adastra’s software is licensed to more than 5,000 seats and transacts 14m patient episodes every year.
ACS is driven by Vin Murria, the Group's chief executive, who commented, "This is an excellent earnings-enhancing acquisition that significantly strengthens our position in the healthcare and public sector markets. It also brings us direct engagement with senior decision makers who need to deliver the kinds of efficiency savings that our combined product set can offer.”
“There are substantial opportunities to cross sell our existing healthcare products into new markets while many of our existing healthcare clients could benefit from management tools in the COA product suite.” she adds.
Murria is highly respected and led her old takeover vehicle Computer Software Group (CSG) over the course of four years acquired 16 businesses in the early part of the decade. She also led a £91m management buyout then rolled the business together and sold it on to a private equity group for around £500m. For VersionOne , the enlarged group could open doors in primary care as well as the potential to attract new partners, especially in Vietnam and India where the Group has offices.
