Business Systems Group sells up

VAR agrees to £15.5m cash deal with healthcare specialist ACS

HP, Sun and IBM reseller Business Systems Group (BSG) has agreed to sell up to healthcare IT services specialist ACS for £15.5m.

ACS confirmed in a stock exchange announcement that it has reached an agreement on the terms of a recommended cash offer with alternative investment market-listed BSG.

HP Gold partner BSG was founded in 1987 and offers infrastructure and application solutions, managed services and training. It made a pre-tax profit of £808,000 on revenues of £18m in its fiscal first-half to 30 September.

ACS said the acquisition would bolster its outsourcing capabilities for its NHS Primary Care Trust customers.

Vin Murria, chief executive of ACS, said: “With its hosting, disaster recovery and outsourcing capabilities, the acquisition of BSG will enable ACS to speed up the rollout of our core growth SaaS products, in particular iNurse (a mobile device for community nurses), Summary Care Record (a single view of the patient record) and End of Life (applications for managing palliative care).”

Nick Gerard, Group chief executive of BSG, said: “The benefit to BSG in being part of the ACS group is substantial. Our strategy is to grow our contracted revenues and the opportunity to do this within ACS around strategic product rollouts is supportive of the company's overall direction.”