Loughborough software firm snaps up NZ counterpart to create £83m division
Loughborough-based software firm The Access Group has acquited Unleashed, a New Zealand-headquartered organisation which supplies inventory management software for the manufacturing, wholesale and distribution markets across Australasia, the UK, US and EMEA.
The acquisition is currently going through all the necessary regulatory approvals and this process is expected to complete successfully in the coming weeks. The value of the deal is undisclosed.
The deal advances Access’s presence in these sectors in the UK comes after the recent acquisition of Attaché, strengthening its position in the Asia-pacific region, specifically New Zealand and Australia.
Unleashed was founded over 10 years ago by Greg Murphy when he recognised there was a need for more sophisticated process management and intelligent data in the wholesale, distribution and manufacturing sector around the management of supply, production, inventory and sales.
Since then Unleashed has grown to provide products and services to more than 4,000 customers across the UK, EMEA, US, New Zealand and Australia. With their head office in New Zealand, Unleashed has a team of over 100 people across NZ, Australia and the UK. With the acquisition of Unleashed bringing additional revenues of around £9.6m) to the division, Access ERP establishes itself as a leading provider of ERP solutions with revenues exceeding £83m.
This latest acquisition builds on the announcement earlier this month from the Access Group of significant year-on-year revenue growth of 47%, leading to revenues of £315m and djusted EBITDA of £109m UK for its fiscal year ended June 30.
Brendan Flattery, managing director, Access ERP said: “Our ERP business supports customers across online retail, warehousing, distribution, construction and manufacturing in the UK, EU, Australia, New Zealand and the US with end-to-end Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). With the global ERP market expected to reach $49.5bn in the next five years, the addition of Unleashed into the Access portfolio gives us a significant opportunity to increase our presence and potential across these sectors.
“Our integrated approach to software, processes and data enables organisations across the globe to benefit from clarity and control of their inventory, from source to sale. We are really excited to be welcoming Gareth, Lisa Miles-Heal and the rest of the Unleashed team into the Access Group.”
Gareth Berry, CEO, Unleashed, said: “Joining Access gives Unleashed a new level of expertise in the provision of integrated software solutions, an acceleration of our product development and gives our customers the opportunity to explore a wider range of ERP and business management solutions from a single provider.
“We set out over a decade ago to give businesses the freedom to better make, manage and move products — we believe that “Good Products Matter” and have championed consumer choice by building the best software with a great team to support our customers to achieve their business potential.
“Our story continues but in an enhanced way as part of The Access Group, and we are really excited to be joining Brendan and the team as part of the Access ERP business.”
