BSG sells off legal division

London-based systems integrator Business Systems Group (BSG) has sold off its legal software and services business in a management buyout, in a bid to concentrate on core operations.

BSG Legal Solutions, now renamed G3 Consulting, has been sold for an undisclosed sum to a management team consisting of Terry Dickinson, Andrew Kennell and Nick Athanasi, all senior consultants at the unit.

The firm is to be run as a wholly owned limited company, and the partners have all taken equal stakes in the venture. Included in the package are the exclusive UK rights to resell the products of legal software house JFS and access to Dataflight's Concordance text retrieval system.

According to Dickinson, the MBO team originally approached BSG to buy the legal business in December 1997.

The sale follows BSG's disposal of its mail-order business last year, in a bid to focus on services (PC Dealer, 24 September 1997).

Nick Gerard, joint managing director of BSG, said the sale of Legal Solutions was an attempt by the reseller to focus more closely on its core business, after looking at operations that do not add value to the overall operation.

'The legal business is minuscule and had been embryonic for the past two years,' he said. 'It was much better for the MBO team to continue running it than it is for me to be involved. I wouldn't be able to give it the attention it requires.'