The news of acquisition of Digital Vision Technologies by BasWare was broken to me at the ExPP Summit. Apologies for taking so long to write about it. Better late than never though.
Digital Vision based in Northwich, Cheshire is a system integrator who specialises in accounts payable automation. Its solutions are based on Kofax’s Ascent, a data capture product that scans invoices and other purchase-to-payment documents. Through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR), Ascent converts data from paper to electronic data which can then be automatically fed in to an accounts payable system. As you very well know, this is not a bullet-proof solution, nevertheless it has a place in the current market until EIPP becomes the norm. Digital Vision also offers workflow and content management solutions to extend their data capture capability.
Digital Vision has about 70 customers, some being blue chips such as Barclays, BAe Systems, BUPA, DSGi, Countrywide, HBoS, Abbey/Grupo Santander and many SMEs. Directors Dennis Wright, and Peter and Robert Goodwin have done remarkably well to have such great names as clients on their books.
BasWare has acquired the entire share capital of Digital Vision for EUR 9.2 million, to be paid in two parts. EUR 9 million is to be paid upon completion of the acquisition. The remainder to be determined by Digital Vision’s net assets on the Interim Financial Statements on 31st August 2007 and to be paid by the beginning of October 2007. This could be interpreted as few anomalies on the balance sheet that require clarification.
Please find below a quick estimation of shareholder earnings from the exit.
Above is based on number of assumptions:
- The shareholder details I obtained from public domain is accurate at the time of exit
- Ord 1p, Ord A1 and Ord B1 shares are of equal value
Above could be correct or miles apart. If you require accurate data, my suggestion is to contact BasWare or Digital Vision.
It’s good to hear that BasWare intends to continue to employ the current management. This is a typical announcement at acquisition stage, for specialist companies such as Digital Vision. Organisational cultures will determine the survival of the management, plus whether the key shareholders would be keen to continue to build the business having worked so hard from inception to sale.
Good example of owner manager impact post acquisition is Tony Bray from Version One, who sold the company to Cedar sometime back only to become a full time consultant. But Tony has set up Version Two (great brand name). Tony and I were supposed to explore the possibility of setting up a company, but I have not been able to find time to think through the concept I came up with. So it has gone to the back burner. I wonder whether its worth putting this idea to the pots of Project Sahara or Vagueware. Let’s get back to the story, shall we…
The acquisition strengthens BasWare’s presence in the UK market, both in terms of number of staff (about 70) and market share for data capture solutions (combining the offerings of Kofax led sales and BasWare’s own data capture solutions).
According to Hannu Vaajoensuu, Chairman of the Board, BasWare
“As a result of the acquisition, BasWare gains a leading position in the UK Enterprise Purchase to Pay market, be it in terms of the number of customers, net sales or the size of the organization. Additionally, we will gain valuable expertise on data capture and management. This improves our competitiveness in especially the financing segment and among multinational, large corporations. The expertise can be utilized within the global partner agreement we recently signed with DICOM”.
As usual drop any feedback you have here or through e-mails.
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Robert Goodwin,
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Kofax Ascent,
data capture,
EIPP,
e-invoicing,
accounts payable automation
