Experian acquisition

GUS plc, the retail and business services group, today announces that Experian has acquired QAS Limited, a leading supplier of address management software in the UK. The purchase price for QAS, which has £16m of cash, is £106m and will be funded from existing GUS resources.

QAS’ software products enable organisations to maintain accurate and up-to-date address information about their customers. When QAS’ clients collect information from a customer, such as house number and postcode, QAS’ software is then able to complete the customer’s full and accurate address instantaneously. The software works across many channels, including call centres, the Internet and point of sale. QAS helps clients to reduce costs, improve customer service and increase the accuracy of data on their customers.

QAS has 8,800 clients worldwide across all sectors, including financial services, insurance, retail and government. About 90% of revenue comes from the UK, where QAS is the clear market leader. It also has nascent international operations in North America, Australia, the Netherlands, France and Singapore. Sales in the year to June 2004 increased by 18% to £49m. QAS employs 370 people, of whom 270 are in the UK.

QAS will benefit from continued growth in the UK market, especially in the government sector, and from international expansion. In addition, there are opportunities to cross-sell Experian products to QAS’ client base in areas such as marketing information, customer data integration, authentication and marketing databases.

Commenting on the acquisition, John Saunders, Chief Executive Officer of Experian International, said:
“The purchase of QAS is consistent with Experian’s global strategy of acquiring complementary businesses that provide new products, new data or entry into new vertical or regional markets, while leveraging the core assets of Experian. Working together, Experian and QAS will bring to the market sophisticated data integrity solutions – further enhancing the quality of our clients’ data about their customers, both at the first point of contact and over time.”

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