Sage buys cloud customers, more losses; will its balance sheet stay Intacct?

So some eyebrows arched upward yesterday when UK-based Sage, one of the more conservative ERP rollup shops out there, dug deep to pay $850 million for cloud-accounting vendor Intacct.

That works out to almost 10x revenues.  I can't give it to you as an earnings multiple, because like most of its peers in Software-Magic-As-A-Cloud (SMAAC), Intacct doesn't have any earnings.  Not sure it ever has - if anyone knows otherwise, please let me know either via email or in the comments below.

According to the press release, they had losses of $23 million on revenues of $67 million in fiscal 2016 (June).  Those revenues bumped to $88 million for 2017, but they must have spent like crazy to get them, because they didn't release the loss number.

Clearly Sage, with its stable of legacy products, some of which have received more facial reconstruction than others, was feeling a bit like the dowdy spinster at the ball.  But dang!  A good result for Intacct's patient investors, I guess, who have poured at least $130 million into it over the years.

Now it'll be up to Sage to see if they can make any, you know, profit.  I know, I know, that's so old-fashioned.  Maybe I just need a SMAAC upside the head.

You gotta admit, InforPlex would be a pretty cool name

So it appears that Plex Systems is looking to be sold for a third time, as all the phones at Francisco Partners (the PE shop that bought them from fellow travelers Apax Partners) all started vibrating with that five-year, time-to-sell reminder message.

Reuters reports that Plex, with revenues of just $100 million, hopes to be valued at "more than $1 billion, including debt."  Wow.

It's quite a coincidence.  That's the same figure I had in mind for potential acquirers of this blog.  And unlike nearly all of its subjects, The ERP Graveyard has no debt.  Please send offers in confidence to ned@xtuple.com.