TechnologyOne to make first international buy in education-focused Scientia for £12m
Australian cloud services provider TechnologyOne is charging ahead with its expansion into the UK market, entering into an agreement to acquire a company that services the education sector.
For an expected cost of around £12 million, Scientia Resource Management Limited will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of TechnologyOne if the deal pushes ahead.
£12 million includes an initial payment of £6 million and further payments, based on achieving progressive earnouts out to FY23, TechnologyOne told shareholders on Friday. Total consideration will be in the form of cash payments funded from internal sources.
"This acquisition forms part of our strategic focus to deliver the deepest functionality for higher education and it will accelerate our growth and competitive position in the UK as well as have significant benefits in the Australian higher education market," TechnologyOne CEO Edward Chung said.
Scientia's product, syllabus plus, provides timetabling and resource scheduling. The company provides software for over 150 universities across the United Kingdom and Australia, including the University of St Andrews, University of Exeter, Monash University, and the University of Queensland.
"The acquisition further expands our global SaaS ERP solution for higher education," Chung continued. "The integration of the Scientia's advanced academic timetabling and resource scheduling capabilities, combined with our market-leading student management, HR & payroll, enterprise asset management, and finance capabilities, will provide smarter decision-making eliminating underutilisation of space and resources that is paramount for higher education across the globe in a post-COVID world."
This is TechnologyOne's first international acquisition.
For the first half of the 2021 financial year, TechnologyOne reported AU$28 million in after-tax profit, growth year-on-year of 48%.
The company attributed the positive results to the 21% uplift in the number of large enterprise SaaS customers to 576.
For the period to 31 March 2021, total revenue grew by 5% from AU$138 million to AU$144.3 million. Of that, AU$140.6 million was revenue from SaaS and continuing business, which grew 7% year-on-year from AU$132 million. The remainder of total revenue was from the company's legacy licence business, which almost halved during the half-year to AU$3.8 million, from the AU$6.2 million recorded during the same period last year.
Elsewhere, infrastructure services provider Ventia announced it signed an agreement with Kordia Group Limited to purchase Kordia Solutions Australia Pty Limited.
Kordia Solutions Australia provides end-to-end telecommunications, communications, and broadcast services.
"Kordia's Australian business provides a range of services which are complementary to Ventia's existing telecommunications portfolio," Ventia group CEO Dean Banks said.
The acquisition is expected to close later this year.