Lynx Group to buy finance company

Services provider Lynx Group will buy financial services company Bankhall and is in discussions with an unnamed party concerning the sale of its automotive division.

Services provider Lynx Group will buy financial services company Bankhall and is in discussions with an unnamed party concerning the sale of its automotive division.

The company will pay £90m for Bankhall and up to a further £24m depending on performance. Gareth Richards, head of communications at Lynx, said Bankhall represents the community of independent financial advisors (IFA).

Bankhall is working with Lynx's financial division to develop a web portal for IFAs to compare and buy financial products.

Lynx also reported a fall in pre-tax profit to £2.3m for the six months ending 31 March and a slight increase in turnover to £111m. The provider said its computer services division, which includes reseller Lynx Technology and distributor Sphinx CST, was "severely affected by reduction on IT spending" caused by the millennium.

Mike Briercliff, managing director of Sphinx CST, said the IBM server business was "on its back" at the end of last year, but has picked up sharply in recent months.

"A lot of our resellers have applications suitable they are interested in delivering as an application service provider, but don't have the infrastructure," he said, adding that Sphinx is in discussions with its partners IBM and Oracle to develop hosting facilities for resellers.

Richards refused to comment on the future of Lynx's automotive division.

First appeared in Computer Reseller News