IRISH SOFTWARE company ChangingWorlds has been acquired by US-quoted technology group Amdocs for an initial cash consideration of $60 million (€46.2 million).
In a statement released last night, Amdocs said the deal was "subject to post-closing adjustments", which means the ultimate price paid could go higher.
Amdocs announced the deal after the US stock market closed. Representatives of ChangingWorlds were not immediately available for comment.
The main beneficiary of the deal will be quoted investment firm TVC Holdings, which holds 25 per cent of the equity in ChangingWorlds following investments when it was Trinity Venture Capital.
The firm's chief scientist, Prof Barry Smith, and chief technical officer Paul Cotter both have around 13 per cent of the company. Other smaller but significant shareholders include chief executive David Moran, vice-president of sales Vincent Ryan, UCD and Enterprise Ireland.
ChangingWorlds was founded in 1999 when it was spun out of a research project in UCD led by Prof Smyth. It provides personalisation software to mobile operators which remembers subscri-bers' internet preferences and browsing history. It ensures that content relevant to that person is presented to them when they log on to the mobile internet portal provided by their operator.
In 2007 ChangingWorlds had a turnover of €13.2 million and generated a pre-tax profit of €1.6 million. The 2007 accounts also state that it signed up 10 new clients last year, bringing to 50 the number of organisations its software has been deployed with. Its customers include Vodafone subsidiaries in the UK, Australia, France, Ireland and the Netherlands, O2 UK and Germany and Swisscom Mobile.
Last July ChangingWorlds announced it had won a major contract with US mobile operator Sprint, which at the time was described as "game-changing" by Mr Ryan. Earlier this year it won the inaugural Irish Technology Leadership Group/ Irish TimesInnovation Award, which recognises the Irish company with the best potential to succeed on the international stage.
Amdocs had sales of $2.84 billion in its 2007 financial year. It provides software and services to support what it calls "integrated customer management", primarily to telecoms and financial services customers. It has customers in more than 50 countries, including Bank of Ireland, Vodafone, Eircom and O2 in the Republic.
