Zone & Co, a US-based financial software developer, has acquired Oxford firm Solution 7 in a deal advised by accountancy firm Crowe and Osborne Clarke LLP.
Solution 7 allows Excel users to build and publish real-time NetSuite reports and financial forecasts with full drill-down and drill-back to NetSuite.
The full integration of both companies will take a phased approach and is expected to be completed by the end of the year, with the combined business reaching more than 4,000 customers around the world.
Founder and CEO Simon Miles said: “The Solution 7 team shares Zone’s passion for helping the CFO’s office enhance their out-of-the-box ERP functionality with intuitive and seamlessly integrated solutions that can handle unique or complex requirements with ease.
“Our uniting forces open up a whole new set of opportunities to deepen and broaden the capabilities of the Zone platform.
“We’ll accelerate our ability to bring together real-time data, intelligent automation and intuitive reporting that drives tangible benefits for our customers.
“From reducing tech debt that drives down technology cost of ownership, to improved decision-making that all come together to help organizations drive higher profitability.”
Hylke Sluis, chief technology officer at Zone & Co, added: “Combining the strengths of Solution 7 and ZoneReporting, customers gain enhanced proficiency to analyse and interrogate their data from a single source of truth when and how they need to, without sacrificing data-integrity.
“Linked to Zone’s broader platform, Solution 7 will help arm organizations with not only easy access to complex real-time data, but connected business-critical insights that help identify anomalies, trends and position teams to ask questions that drive faster and better decision making across the organization.”
Crowe, led by Mark Allen and supported by William Thompson, provided integrated corporate finance and M&A tax services to the shareholders of Solution 7.
M&A tax advice was provided by Mark Stemp.
Simon of Solution 7 added: “I was very impressed and thankful for the way Crowe expertly guided me through a time-pressured process to deliver a successful result.
“Crowe took a lot of the stress of the deal away from me which was a real driver for the transaction to complete on time.
“I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them to other business owners.”
Wilkie Farr & Gallagher LLP was legal adviser to Zone & Co. Osborne Clarke was legal adviser to Solution 7.
