Newly diversified software and services firm Idox has made another acquisition for its Engineering Information Management (EIM) division, following CTSpace last November (see here), buying computer-aided facilities management software supplier FMx Ltd (FMx) for £5.6m in cash. IDOX is paying just over 2x revenue for FMx, which made an underlying operating margin of 33% in its most recent year ended 31 March 2012. As a result, Idox expects the deal to be immediately earnings enhancing.
Crawley-based FMx employs 24 people, and offers a product called CAFM Explorer, which is used for building management, maintenance, asset tracking and cost control activities within facilities management services. The software is apparently used across corporate, public and commercial real estate customers in over 30 countries, including oil and gas, energy and utilities, process manufacturing and local government. The CAFM Explorer software is provisioned either on or off-premise via the web and mobile devices. It will now be brought under Idox’s McLaren Software brand and management – the engineering software company it acquired in December 2010 (see here) which has formed the basis of Idox's EIM division.
This is an interesting acquisition. We see use of planning software to automate some of the labour intensive tasks involved in facilities management, and other support services such as property, environmental and highways services, as an emerging area where there should be good growth opportunities over the next few years. We explore this in detail in a new report IT-enabled support services: opportunities in an emerging space, soon to be published for subscribers to TechMarketView’s BusinessProcessViews research stream.