Tribal Group plc (“Tribal”), a leading provider of software and services for education management, is pleased to announce that it has acquired the entire issued share capital of Callista Software Services Pty Ltd (Callista), a leading provider of student management systems to the Australian university market.
Callista provides its software to 25% of Australian universities. The Callista student management system is a mature software product, and the business benefits from long-standing relationships with its customers. It is based in Geelong and Melbourne, Australia.
Tribal’s acquisition of Callista provides support for the existing Callista software platform over an initial seven year period, and the opportunity for members of the customer base to migrate to the current Tribal university software platform over time. The transaction will also offer synergistic benefits through sharing of intellectual property, know-how and resources in combination with Tribal’s existing Australian business.
The acquisition is expected to be earnings accretive in its first full year. The unaudited revenue of Callista for the year ended 31 December 2014 was AUD 15.9m, and operating profit was AUD 1.6m. The value of gross assets at 31 December 2014 was AUD 14.1m. Total consideration for the entire issued share capital is AUD 3.6m, payable in cash in equal instalments over a three year period.
Keith Evans, Chief Executive of Tribal, commented: “This transaction continues Tribal’s development in Australia, and allows us swiftly to offer our proven university software capabilities to an increased number of new customers across Australia. Following our acquisition of Sky Software and Human Edge in 2014, and our recently announced contract wins in Queensland and Tasmania, Tribal is now a leading student management software provider to each of the university, college and schools markets in Australia.”