It turns out that Waltham, Massachusetts-based Advanced Visual Systems Inc bought Danish graphics visualisation software house, Uniras A/S, on Friday September 4 for an undisclosed sum in cash. No external financing was necessary. Uniras officially filed for bankruptcy, when its main financier and shareholder, Hafnia A/S, a Danish financial services company, ran into money troubles and decided to divest itself of the firm. All Uniras subsidiaries continued to operate however, although senior management in Copenhagen left prior to the takeover. While job losses resulted from the acquisition, all country and research and development managers kept their jobs. Advanced Visual said it decided to bid for Uniras because of the group’s complementary product line, customer base and distribution channels. First, Uniras focuses on two- dimensional presentation graphics and visual data analysis software, while Advanced Visual specialises in interactive three-dimensional graphics and visualisation packages. Second, many of Advanced Visual’s existing customers already use Uniras products, which Advanced Visual has pledged to continue selling, supporting and developing. Third, while Advanced Visual’s distribution strategy has so far been focussed on the US market, Uniras does most of its business in Europe. Advanced Visual declared that the acquisition has doubled its turnover and the size of its installed customer base. Sales operations in France, Germany and Italy now operate as wholly-owned subsidiaries under the name AVS/Uniras. A new subsidiary in Copenhagen also uses the same tag, and will continue to undertake research and development work. In the UK and US, however, Advanced Visual and Uniras operations have merged to become part of Advanced Visual Systems Inc and are managed from Waltham. Advanced Visual says it will initially sell Uniras products separate from its own, but will look at ways of integrating the two lines over the next year to two years.
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