Manchester, UK-based Isoft, said the Torex Retail Business is currently being sold to an unnamed buyer for 65m pounds ($110.5m), which includes the repayment of debt and the assumption of liabilities. Isoft said the deal involves the Torex Retail Ltd, Torex Retail Holdings and the majority 69.8% stake in its German arm Logware Informationssysteme GmbH. However, the deal is dependent on the buyer securing the funds to cover the takeover.

Torex Retail develops and installs point-of-sale, point-of-service, CRM, data warehouse, performance management and other back-office systems for the retail sector where it counts firms such as Argos, BhS, Selfridges, Tesco, Virgin Trains, Woolworths, Dixons, and WH Smith among its customers. The division accounts for 34% of Torex’s revenue, reporting revenue of 41.8m pounds ($71.1m) for the 12 months to December 31, 2002, and an operating profit of 5m pounds ($8.5m).

Isoft and Torex are currently in the midst of a $1.2bn merger that is aimed at creating a force in the UK healthcare sector. However, the proposed merger was cast into doubt in December after the UK’s Competition Appeals Tribunal ruled it could be anti-competitive, reacting to concerns from an Australian rival firm IBA Health. The Office of Fair Trading is now destined to take the issue to the Appeals Court next month, when a final ruling should be given on whether the merger should go ahead.

Competing for a larger share of this NHS bounty is one of the key reasons behind the merger which was announced in September. In a statement issued then, the companies said they would: provide the necessary expertise and experience to participate more fully in the 2.3bn pound ($3.9bn) NHS modernization program. The merged group will be better placed to service the requirements of the National Application Service Providers and the LSPs in the five geographic regions in England.

The company is expected to win subcontracts with a number of the recently announced prime contractors on the billion-dollar regional NHS IT services deals. However, a major blow was dealt to ISoft earlier this week when it lost out on a lucrative piece of the final NHS IT services contract in which it was partnering with EDS. That 896m pound ($1.52bn) deal to provide IT services to the south of England, was won by a consortium led by Fujitsu Services.

This article is based on material originally published by ComputerWire