The chairman of London Bridge Software is poised to walk away from the company he founded 17 years ago with over £76m after agreeing to sell the business to a US rival.
Gordon Crawford's 46% stake in the firm he set up in 1987 after quitting his job as a planning officer with Haringey council was worth upwards of £1.3bn - or over £15 a share - during the dotcom boom, making him one of Britain's richest men.
But the bubble burst and London Bridge Software's shares sank as it suffered a slowdown in business, warning on profits and axing staff in 2002. Yesterday Mr Crawford, who bought himself a Scottish estate after bringing the company to market in 1997, decided to vote in favour of a takeover by California rival Fair Isaac which values the business at 95p a share.
The all-cash deal values the whole of the company at £166m and is the latest takeover in the UK-listed software industry. Buyers, especially from the US, are attracted by the low ratings being given to software companies on the London stock market.
In early March, Merant agreed a £206m takeover by California's Serena Software, creating the world's second largest maker of software used by corporations to manage the deployment of new business applications.
Then last week the board of another business software developer, Maidenhead-based Staffware, recommended a £123m takeover by US rival and former Reuters unit Tibco.
London Bridge supplies credit management and debt collection systems to customers ranging from banks and utilities to government agencies. Like many other technology companies, it suffered from the slowdown in spending on IT which came after the dotcom crash.
While the company has spent the past year putting its house in order and the market has since shown signs of improvement, finance director Gordon Stuart explained that the Fair Isaac deal is worth more than twice the current share price and offers certainty for shareholders.
"Our role as a board is to make sure we look after our shareholders and 54% is a reasonably hefty premium. The markets are recovering, allegedly, and we are seeing positive signs but there is no certainty in that," he said.
He does not expect any redundancies among London Bridge's 730 employees as there is little geographic overlap with Fair Isaac. In fact the only person definitely leaving is Mr Crawford who will be available as a consultant.
