AVEVA Group Plc Acquires Z+F UK Limited For Net Consideration Of £6.3 Million

AVEVA (stock code : AVV), one of the world's leading providers of engineering design and information management solutions, today announces the acquisition of Z+F UK Limited ("Z+F UK"), a UK software company which develops and markets leading laser scanning software for the capture and management of laser scan data.

The acquisition brings to AVEVA's leading technology a versatile software portfolio for the management of laser scanned data together with a team of people with significant domain experience in the laser scanning market. Laser scanning is the quickest way for owner operators to obtain "as built" data of brownfield facilities which can then be used for asset management, modifications and decommissioning.  Laser scanning is also increasingly being used in the design and construction phase to check that what has been built agrees to the original design.

AVEVA's expanded portfolio now provides it with an unrivalled suite of design, engineering and information management solutions for the brownfield asset market substantially reducing time and costs to create intelligent 3D models from the laser scanned data compared to competitive offerings. The acquired software portfolio is compatible with all leading laser scanners therefore ensuring broad market appeal.

Terms of the acquisition

AVEVA Solutions Limited (a 100% subsidiary of AVEVA Group plc) is acquiring the entire share capital of Z+F UK (a subsidiary of Z+F GmbH) for net consideration of £6.3 million on a debt free/cash free basis which has been satisfied from the company's existing cash resources.

As part of the acquisition of Z+F UK, Z+F GmbH has also been granted a licence to continue to distribute the Z+F UK software together with Z+F GmbH's laser scanning hardware products. This initial licence has been granted free of royalty up to the value of the first £1 million of royalties over the next 5 years.

The acquisition is expected to complete on 7 October 2011.

Commenting on the acquisition, Richard Longdon, Chief Executive said "AVEVA has been successfully working with the Z+F team as a partner for a number of years, jointly creating innovative new products for the use of laser data in plant design and operations. This acquisition brings under AVEVA's control this core technology to support a set of products that will offer substantial efficiencies and cost savings over currently available technology".