Phoenix coughs £30.25m for Servo

Phoenix IT Group has bought UK small and medium-sized business IT provider Servo Computer Services for £30.25m.

The deal is made up of stock, and £28m cash from Phoenix's coffers and bank finance.

Servo's revenues for the last financial year were £42.2m, netting a pre-tax profit of £2.8m from its 1,200 customers.

The buy is part of a push by Phoenix into the market for small business services. It bought Trend Network Services in March 2004 and NDR in April 2005. Servo will mostly be used to cross-sell services to Phoenix's business continuity customers.

Phoenix chief exec Nick Robinson said: "Our continued expansion into the growing SME market for managed services and outsourcing is a natural extension of our existing offering and we expect to generate significant benefits for the Group as a result of the acquisition." ®