Client-server consultancy and services provider Cambridge Technology Partners Inc, Cambridge, Massachusetts has signed a definitive agreement to purchase Swedish firm, IOS Group AB which is in the same line of business – on a share swap basis. Cambridge will issue 425,000 shares of common stock, worth approximately $10.5m, in exchange for all of IOS’s shares, and the transaction is expected to be completed next month. For the next five years after that, former IOS shareholders, including Ulf Arnetz, who continues to serve as the Stockholm-based group’s president and chief executive, will be able to exercise a buy-out option. IOS will retain its name and become a daughter company of Cambridge. It generated turnover of some $6m in 1993, boasts a growth rate of about 60% per annum, and has about 60 employees, all of which will keep their jobs. The firm says that, with the financial security now offered it by Cambridge, it intends to expand out of Sweden to cover Scandinavia as a whole and ultimately Northern Europe. It is currently working at 15 different sites for customers including Saab Scania AB, L M Ericsson Telefon AB, and the Swedish Employers Federation. Cambridge, on the other hand, feels a strong push into Europe is critical as many of its customers are multinationals that need worldwide support. It already has offices in the Netherlands and the UK, and hopes to generate revenues of about $14m in the region next year. In 1992, the company’s turnover amounted to approximately $33m, and it expects to have made about $60m in 1993 – the official figures will be released in about a week’s time. Moreover, since going public in April last year, Cambridge has seen the value of its shares triple – it reckons the market now capitalises it at around $300m.
