Hummingbird Ltd., a Toronto-based enterprise software company, has acquired U.K.-based Valid Information Systems Ltd. for US$16.5 million.
Valid Information Systems provides compliance and record management software solutions to public and private sectors in the U.K. Under the terms of the deal, Valid will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hummingbird and will continue to support customer implementations in the United Kingdom. Valid’s management team and employees will remain in their current positions, Hummingbird said.
Late last month, Hummingbird bought another privately held company in the U.K. – Kramer Lee & Associates Ltd. – which provides business solutions for the legal, insurance and financial markets. Hummingbird said the two purchases will accelerate its ability to deliver products to the government sector.
According to Hummingbird, the Valid buy will also expedite its ability to deploy products on a variety of J2EE application servers including BEA Systems Inc.’s WebLogic, IBM Corp.’s WebSphere and Oracle Corp.’s 9iAS.
As the IT industry and the software sector in particular continues to move toward consolidation, Alister Sutherland, director of software research for IDC Canada Ltd. noted that with a soft market, Hummingbird has chosen the acquisition route to grow its business while adding customers.
The purchase, Sutherland added, will allow Hummingbird to expand its existing business.
“(It) helps Hummingbird exploit the market it wants to and certainly the government and public sectors are significant ones, especially in this country,” he said.
The company is online at www.hummingbird.com.