Access Intelligence starts its acquisition trail with Ether-Ray
YORK-based software and computer services firm Access Intelligence has made its first acquisition since announcing it was on the trail earlier this month.
The firm has bought Ether-Ray – a London-based Software as a Service (SaaS) firm for £2.4m.
The majority of its188 customers are on six year subscription contracts. Founder Raul Gonzalez will stay on with the business as a consultant for a limited period to help transition the business into the Access Intelligence group.
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.
The software firm’s turnover for the year ending August 31, 2008 was £888,000. Pre-tax profits were £380,000.
Michael Jackson, Access Intelligence’s executive chairman, said: “Ether-Ray is one of the market leaders in this public sector niche, servicing around 25% of local authorities and counting universities, NHS organisations, police authorities, charities and government agencies among its clients.
“The acquisition is in line with our 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. “
Access Intelligence offers compliance software through MS2M, procurement and contract management software through Due North and media relations and PR services through Solcara and Wired-Gov.
It announced earlier this month that pre-tax profits had risen from an adjusted loss of £175,000 to £199,000 for the six months ended May, 31 2009.
Revenue rose by 38% to £2.6m from £1.9m for the same period last year. Basic earnings per share is 0.12p (2008, loss 2.59p).
Helping to boost the results is the win of a major deal with RBS, recurring revenues with the public sector generating 11 new users, and a significant reduction in cost across the group.
The group said it was looking to develop its SaaS proposition and non-SaaS divisions Willow Starcom and Wired-Gov.
