Borland International Inc, quoted on London’s Unlisted Securities Market, announced late yesterday that it had preliminary agreement to acquire Ansa Software Corp for 8.85m shares, valuing the company at an indicated $37.4m. Privately-held Ansa is the developer of the Paradox PC-DOS relational database manager that responds to near-English questions using query-by-example. Ansa was heavily backed by the Sevin-Rosen venture capital partnership, and promises to provide Borland with a solid long-lived product to complement its mass of low-end products. Borland says Ansa’s turnover would have accounted for 25% of the combined total of the two firms in the year to March 31; Ansa lost $1.4m in the year to December 31, but looks to move into profit this quarter. Under the share exchange agreement, Ansa will account for 13.4% of the enlarged equity. Borland shares, soaring this week on US buying, rose another 8p to 273p.
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