Big in Brazil: Sage gobbles accountancy software firm

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By Anna Leach, 24th September 2012

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The Sage Group have bought a Brazilian accountancy software company, sweeping in an extra 4000 customers.

The £10.6m buy-up of Empresa Brasileira de Sistemas (EBS) adds to a series of big company acquisition by Sage in the past months to strengthen Sage's dominant position in Brazil.

Sage paid £10.6m (R$35.0m) for the accountancy, tax and biz management company EBS, a deal done through Sage's subsidiary Folhamatic Tecnologia. It includes a payment of £1.8m (R$6m) linked to the future financial performance of EBS.

EBS's 4000 clients will be rolled into a new expanded Folhamatic, which Sage say is already Brazil's leading accountancy software platform. EBS customers are mainly accountancy firms - 2,300 - with the other 1,700 mainly SME business customers.

Sage have been expanding aggresssively in Brazil, they bought Folhamatica in June 2012. And recently forked out £3.9m (R$12.9m) for Cenize - a provider of accounting software to over 7,000 small and micro businesses in Brazil, which Sage described as "an attractive market segment with significant growth potential".

Commenting on the acquisition, Guy Berruyer, CEO of Sage, said that the buys expanded his "footprint" and brought in important customers:

We are pleased to announce the acquisitions of EBS and Cenize which are in line with our strategy of expanding our footprint in Brazil. These businesses are high growth, with recurring revenue models and are focused on core SME accounting customers.

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