Computer Software Group PLC has announced that it has paid approximately £7 million for legal software firm Videss Ltd, including £6.57 million in cash. It said the acquisition was financed by the issue of 518,135 shares plus a bank loan.
CS Group said Videss had a turnover of just under £5 million for the latest year and showed profits of £0.5 million to March 31. Videss has some 180 legal firms in its client base, with about 10,000 users and annual support contracts worth roughly £2 million.
Founder and CEO of Videss, Paul Sanderson, and his wife Sonja Sanderson, who is the finance director, will retire from the business on acquisition. Chris Rose will remain sales director.
Reporting another acquisition of a legal software house by CS Group is getting to be like reporting that the postman came. In May CS Group acquired the AIM Group and in June it bought out Laserform, reportedly spending £5.3 million and £4.8 million respectively. CS Group now has a formidable range of products. Quite how they will tie them all together and whether there are real cross-selling opportunities remains to be seen.
Read a report of an interview with the CEO of the Computer Software Group here.
