London, 12th July 2006. HgCapital, the European sector-focused private equity investor, today announces the recent completion of its public-to-private acquisition of Visma ASA (“Visma”), the Norwegian accountancy software group, for £382 million. The transaction completed in May of this year.
Visma is a Norwegian-based accountancy software business servicing over 200,000 customers, primarily in the SME sector. Headquartered in Oslo, it has 85 offices throughout Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. The Company has three main business segments: accounting software, accounting services and e-procurement and working capital management.
Visma operates in a highly attractive segment of the software market: SME-focused software has consistently shown growth rates of 8%-10% per year. The market is highly fragmented, providing many acquisition opportunities for leading companies. As a result, Visma has shown consistent annual growth rates of over 20% from both organic and acquisitive sources.
HgCapital is ideally placed to support Visma’s on-going growth: it has one of the most experienced technology investment teams in Europe and has an extensive track record of working successfully with similar companies. The acquisition of Visma is HgCapital technology team’s fourth transaction in the accounting software segment. Recent investments include IRIS Software, a UK-based enterprise resource planning vendor providing products to small and medium-sized companies and their accountant advisors; Addison Software, a German application software company providing business critical solutions to tax accountants and small and medium-sized enterprises; PBSG, a similar business to Addison, also in the German market; and Rolfe & Nolan plc, a provider of back-office software and processing to financial services clients.
Nic Humphries, Head of Technology at HgCapital commented:
“Visma is an outstanding business, with a large stable client base and a leading market position. We fully support Visma’s current management team and its strategic objectives of securing both organic growth and making significant acquisitions across Northern Europe. We intend to continue to develop Visma as a Norwegian-based industry leader in Northern Europe. We very much look forward to working with management to build a world-leading software company operating on a pan-European basis, headquartered in Norway.”
Oystein Moan, Chief Executive of Visma added:
“HgCapital has demonstrated a real commitment to Visma and our strategic objectives, a deep understanding and expertise of the sector as well as a desire to maintain Visma as a flagship Norwegian-based software business. They are the ideal partner to take Visma to the next phase of its development, continuing to strengthen our position in the Nordic region and expanding into other European countries. We very much look forward to working with HgCapital in the future.”