French IT consultancy and services company, Valtech SA has signed a memorandum of understanding for the acquisition of a Swedish company in the same area of business, Axon IT AB, for an undisclosed sum. Stockholm-based Axon’s specific area of expertise, according to managing director Martin Forsling, is advanced systems development. He cited as an example a recent project for the creation of the technical architecture for testing the production of pacemakers.
Though Valtech already had an office in Sweden, merging Axon into its operation there will accelerate its growth in the Scandinavian market as a whole, said Forsling. Axon has recently established an office in another city, Uppsala, and is now currently putting another into southern Sweden from which it could also serve the Danish market.
Axon is engaged in ongoing projects with companies such as telecoms equipment manufacturer, LM Ericsson AB; mobile operator, Comviq; Svenska Handelsbanken, a leading financial institution; and the government’s on-line gaming and lottery operator, Svenska Spiel. For its fiscal year ended April 30, 1999, the company had a net profit of 0.37m euros ($382,690) on revenue of 2.44m euros ($2.5m).
Valtech floated on the Nouveau Marche in Paris in April (CI No 3,639), its intention being to use the $16m raised on international expansion. It is already present, apart from France, in the UK, the US, Sweden and Switzerland.
