ACS buys Staffplan

(By Richard Holway 7.00am 15th July 09) Vin Murria managed 16 acquisitions in her four and half years at the helm of CSG. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she beats that target with ACS. Since taking the helm just a year back, ACS has acquired Adastra, BSG and raised £44m for more purchases.

Today, ACS has spent a small bit (£1.36m) of this war chest on Staffplan Ltd which provides roster software for community care providers. Staffplan had revenues of £1.48m and PBT of £70K in FY ending 31st Mar 09. Seems to fit well with ACS’ iNurse application and the hosted services resources it obtained in the BSG purchase. In other words it all seems to knit together rather nicely!

We wrote about the ‘Murria Model’ in our post of 28th Apr 09 – ACS Part 2. In it Vin told us that she had identified over 100 possible targets in the primary healthcare arena. We expect ACS to target quite a number of smaller ‘lifestyle-type’ companies as they grow. Indeed that was the CSG model too. But we also expect some comparative ‘biggies’ along the way. The most obvious target would be EMIS.

What I think is certain is that ACS will feature quite regularly in HotViews!