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IRIS forms mega group through merger with CSG

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11th Jun 2007
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After a long, semi-public quest for new investors, the IRIS Group has joined forces with the London Stock Exchange-listed Computer Software Group to become a major consolidated software group.

The group will trade under the name of IRIS Software Group, with IRIS group CEO Martin Leuw taking on the role of group chief executive while CSG chief executive Vin Murria will become chief M&A officer. The merged group is said to have pro forma revenues of more than £100 million. Alongside the IRIS tax, practice, payroll and accounting products, it now claims to be the largest software supplier to UK law firms and not for profit organisations, and now includes the Chorus ERP and HR software suite alongside Exchequer from the IRIS enterprise wing.

Presented as a merger, the deal has been underwritten by a £500 million recapitalisation funded by partnerships affiliated with private equity group Hellman & Friedman LLC. Both wings were acquired from HgCapital, which remains a 11% shareholder in the merged entity. Lloyds TSB Development Capital, which backed Leuw's original management buy-out at IRIS, has taken its money and left the funding consortium.

While IRIS has been pursuing an increasingly ambitious acquisition programme (Freeway, Exchequer, Intex and PTP), it has been matched in this regard by CSG, which completed a £100 million MBO with HgCapital's backing in April this year.

In May it acquired law firm software house Mountain Software and in a more intriguing deal, it moved into "compliance services" with the acquisition of FAST Limited, a training and education body endorsed by the Federation Against Software Theft. These deals followed three others in 2006.

Stephen Duckett, Managing Director at H&F noted that IRIS and CSG both had strong vertical market positions, good subscription revenues and organic growth, back by good customer retention levels.

"The strategic logic for this business combination is very sound and we have successfully adopted a similar investment approach in the USA vertical software sectors. We see excellent opportunities for further organic growth supplemented by continued complementary acquisitions," he said.

The IRIS Group is no longer the intimate, owner-managed company many of its accountant customers came to know - and it hasn't been for several years. As AccountingWEB's David Carter would put it, IRIS is now very much in the hands of "the suits" and playing the same kind of game as COA (CedarOpenAccounts) and larger international players such as Sage and Infor.

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By carnmores
11th Jun 2007 14:53

Hello...

'The IRIS Group is no longer the intimate, owner-managed company many of its accountant customers came to know'


oh yea! roll on my class action

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By User deleted
15th Jun 2007 09:40

How will the merger affect accountants?
The Iris merger throws open some interesting questions about the way in which the accountancy vendor community is moving. Industry watchers will, like me, have noticed that over the past few years Sage has increasingly diversified itself to focus on a wide variety of different vertical markets. Feedback from the accountancy and small business community shows that the impact of this has been a strong feeling of disenfranchisement.

I can’t help but think that Iris may now suffer from the same problems as it pursues a wide vertical market strategy. And I would like to point out that here at MYOB we know how damaging such a strategy can be. After all, when MYOB purchased Solution 6 we faced an uphill challenge to refocus the combined entity back onto the accountancy and small business accounting market and undo the damage that Solution 6’s previous diversification strategy had done.

Today, MYOB’s focus is single-mindedly on accountants and the small businesses they serve. This is the right strategy for us and what the industry needs. Accountants are experiencing a challenging time right now as they face increased competitive threats and find their core accountancy offering approaching commodity status. The result is the widespread focus on providing enhanced added value services to corporate clients.

From a technology perspective, accountants need their software suppliers to be even more focussed on their market than ever before. They need software that assists in stripping out cost and resource from low value accountancy work and that enhances the service they can provide to their clients. This means that the software providers must continue to invest in new and innovative solutions to meet these requirements. At MYOB, we have consistently shown that this is our top priority.

Richard Allen
Managing director
MYOB UK

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John Stokdyk, AccountingWEB head of insight
By John Stokdyk
15th Jun 2007 09:39

I think PTP is on pretty solid ground
David,

Don't get too doom-laden about the lastest IRIS financial deal - they've had PTP on the books for the best part of the year and as far as I can see have left it pretty much alone. I think it 's a little bit like TAS within the Sage group - it provides an in-house alternative for people who aren't attracted by the main product range.

This is purely a view from someone looking in from the outside. Next week I'm going to meet Robert Salvoni, the MD of IRIS's accounancy wing, and will put your question to him.

If there are any other issues AccountingWEB members would like to raise, post your queries here and I'll raise them with Robert.

John Stokdyk
Technology editor
AccountingWEB.co.uk

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David J Cox FCPA
By sussexbulldog
14th Jun 2007 19:14

PTP programs
Does this latest merger mean the end of the PTP brand ?

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