In an exclusive interview with ComputerWire, Mr Jones said that despite the formerly acquisitive Geac not making an acquisition since its August 2002 Comshare buy, it has not changed its strategy of growth via acquisition.

We have been intensely looking [at potential targets], he said. But market prices for transactions have been very high, and it has been difficult to find targets that would be accretive.

But Mr Jones also conceded that the mid-market ERP and business performance management software vendor looks increasingly attractive as a takeover target itself: It is not improbable that we would become a target, because of how profitable we have become, he said. We’re not immune from this trend [of consolidation]. I am just the custodian, and I will do what is best for Geac’s customers and shareholders.

Geac has become far more attractive as a takeover proposition since Mr Jones has been able to turn the company’s dwindling sales and spiraling losses into stable revenue and growing profits: for the six months ended October 31, 2004 the company announced sales of $213.3 million, virtually unchanged from the $213 million it posted for the year-ago period. It improved its profitability, however, posting earnings of $28.7 million compared to $19.6 million in the same period a year earlier. It also had $122 million of cash and equivalents as of October 31, 2004.

With a customer base of 18,000, including half of the Fortune 100, Geac could prove a tempting prospect for serial acquirer SSA Global Technologies, or Chinadotcom, the Asia-Pac based ERP company that could use Geac as a beachhead to move beyond its domestic market.

It might even be attractive to Microsoft, which has been building its Microsoft Business Solutions division via the acquisitions of Great Plains, Navision and Axapta; or SAP, which may want to add even more weight to its mid-market presence to keep the heat on Oracle and its PeopleSoft/JD Edwards units.

Finally, if not courted by the enterprise applications vendors, Geac could feasibly be of interest to the business intelligence fraternity such as Cognos, Business Objects, Microstrategy or SAS. They might like the look of Geac’s customer base and increasing focus on software for the CFO, though there would be obvious overlaps in the BPM space.

However Mr Jones denied that since his appointment as CEO in July 2003 the primary goal has been to get the company in fit enough shape for it to be sold. No that has certainly not been the goal, he said. We stated publicly at the time four years ago that we had put [Geac] up for sale, but that didn’t evolve. We were therefore well advised not to rely on an event outside of our control.