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The AltX financial services niche software group, Silverbridge, has expanded its offering into the loans administration software. The group has done this by acquiring from Grayston Technology Investments the Acczone business comprising of the Acczone Academy business and the Acczone Software business ("Acczone"). Silverbridge has stated that its strategy is to expand into other pillars of financial services and, over the medium term, specifically into, inter alia, loans administration software. Acczone is a Sage development partner and has become a leading provider of loan administration software for midmarket and enterprise organisations in Africa. More specifically, Silverbridge explains how "...Acczone has developed its own loan administration software which also integrates with Sage Accpac ERP suite of products as well as SageCRM. As such, it complements and expands the current SilverBridge offerings." The purchase price is very much dependent on the 2011 profits from the business and has both a cash and equity portion. The equity portion will be issued out at 165c per share, and the final acquisition price is aimed to be based on Acczone's 2011 profits at 70% of the earnings mutliple of SVB at that time. This formula locks in value for Silverbridge in all scenario's except where the Acczone business makes a loss. As it appears the Acczone is in the development phase of its life and still building its business, the fact that the pro-forma financial effects show SVB's EPS dropping by 0.8% are not relevant. The acquisition is effective from the 1st of this month (1 December 2009) and SVB has now withdrawn the cautionary it had previously issued over itself.
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