Vistatec MBO values company at €12.6 million

Managers at Dublin software firm Vistatec have completed a leveraged buyout of the company, valuing it in the region of €12.6 million.

The main beneficiary is company founder Mervyn Dyke, who held a 56 per cent shareholding before the deal was concluded last Friday.

The company is one of a number of small and medium-sized firms taking part in an Enterprise Ireland US trade mission led by Minister for Enterprise, Micheál Martin. Yesterday, Mr Martin met in Washington with US secretary for commerce Carlo Gutierrez, as part of the effort to grow business links with the US.

The Vistatec buyout team includes chief executive Thomas Murray and three other management figures who had minority shareholdings in the company.

"We approached Mervyn at the end of last year and the deal was signed on Friday," Mr Murray said.

Vistatec, which employs 120 people, specialises in software localisation. The company translates English language software into other languages and tests software created for the Windows platform on other platforms. While most of the staff are based in Dublin, the company has sales offices in Washington and California. Mr Murray declined to reveal the valuation, but said the company had been profitable since its establishment by Mr Dyke in 1997. Vistatec had sales last year of €15 million and pretax profits of €1.8 million.

The management consortium now controls more than 90 per cent of the business. On the basis of current trends that value software companies at about seven times their profits, the deal is worth some €12.6 million, valuing Mr Dyke's 56 per cent stake at some €7 million.

The management team, advised by Bank of Scotland (Ireland), includes Vistatec localisation manager Patrick Kelly, information systems manager Jerry Lane and chief technology officer Phil Ritchie.

Each was a minority shareholder before the buyout.

A number of other smaller equity holders, who were not identified by Mr Murray, sold their shareholdings to the management team. Enterprise Ireland retains its 5.25 per cent share of the business after the deal.

The other consortium members are Vistatec business development managers Unn Villius and Valeska Van Vliet, and human resources manager Siobhán Murphy.