Private equity still attracted to UK technology firms

Angelica Mari, Computing, Thursday 14 January 2010 at 17:00:00

Businesses focused on software-as-a-service and cloud among the most
sought-after

ICT firms based in the UK continue to attract the interest of private equity
backers, according to a recent survey carried out by business and financial
advisor Grant Thornton.

Some 84 per cent of the 40 large private equity investors surveyed said they
intend to acquire a business in the technology sector over the next 12 months.

The survey adds that 72 per cent of those polled expect the transaction
volume in ICT to increase over the next few months and that more investors are
looking into opportunities to acquire such businesses, which may indicate more
competition for deals.

Cloud computing and software-as-a-service (SaaS) was cited by 89 per cent of
the private equity houses surveyed as a key investment opportunity over the next
12 months, while 39 per cent mentioned green IT as another main area of
interest.

?[Cloud and SaaS] are benefiting from cost cutting measures that see
businesses shift from acquiring software to acquiring licenses for applications
as a service on demand," said head of technology at Grant Thornton, Niki Dixon.

"As computing capacity and the use of mobile devices increases, we are likely
to see increasing government support for emerging technologies such as optical
computing, the development of solid state drive technologies as well as a broad
range of solutions to improve operational efficiency," added Dixon.

And 95 per cent of those surveyed expect most future deals to be worth less
than �100m.

Full story at http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2256185/private-equity-attracted-uk