Anite joins the ever-growing list of UK tech M&A

Hot on the heels of my piece - Just no stopping the bids – last week, we added yet another bid. This time it was Anite. The news pushed the shares up 30% to end the week on 52p – valuing Anite at £178m. Again, it is worth noting that Anite had been a member of Holway’s 50% Club (shares trading at less than 50% their 2007 high) before the bid. The current price is still 45% lower than the high.

Anite has been ‘For Sale’ for a long time – two years? Indeed, their past has been somewhat ‘troubled’. Apart from being another example of the high interest in tech M&A right now, it also illustrates the ‘consolidation’ going on in the public sector SITS companies. I remind readers that in the last six months we have seen both Northgate and Civica being taken out by private equity and last week we reported a bid for IBS. As The Times pointed out, this just leaves IDOX. How long will it be before we are writing about them receiving a bid too?