Cheshire’s Computer Software Holdings sold for £110m
A CHESHIRE business software provider, specialising in the not-for-profit, SME and legal sectors, has been bought for £110m.
Knutsford-based Computer Software Holdings (CSH) has been sold by private equity firm HgCapital to Surrey-based AIM-listed Advanced Computer Software Group.
CSH is a leading provider of accounting and back office software to the UK professional services market (legal and coroners) and customer relationship management software for the not-for-profit market.
It also provides accounting software to SMEs, as well as mobile solutions for field services operations.
Based at Booths Park, the group’s ebitda in the year to the end of December 31 2012 was £13.2m on revenues of £61.5m.
Some 85% of the total is recurring revenue (contracted and repeating), of which £40m is contracted recurring revenue with a further £12m of non-contracted repeating revenue.
Led by chief executive Neal Roberts and chairman Nick Discombe, CSH has around 650 employees with offices across the UK, USA and Ireland, serving 12,000 customers.
It was acquired by HgCapital in 2011 as part of its purchase of Iris Software Group. Since then, CSH has been separated from Iris and run as an independent business.
Jonathan Boyes, director in HgCapital’s TMT team who led the sale, said: “CSH has made significant progress under HgCapital’s ownership and in ACS has found the ideal home to further develop its market leading suite of products.”
Vin Murria, chief executive of ACS, said: “This immediately earnings enhancing acquisition is a tremendous opportunity for both ACS and CSH which will also significantly enhance the scale of our business solutions and managed services divisions.
“The business and many of the management team are well known to us which will simplify the integration process.
“The acquisition also provides multiple opportunities for cross-selling our growing portfolio of products and services, as businesses and organisations increasingly seek technology solutions to improve business performance and deliver economies.”
