Wednesday, March 16, 2005


IBM TO ACQUIRE EQUITANT, LEADER IN ORDER-TO-CASH MANAGED SERVICES

Acquisition Will Enhance IBM’s Capabilities in Key Emerging Business Services


IBM announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Equitant, a global business transformation outsourcing (BTO) provider that focuses on the management and optimization of the Order-to-Cash cycle for large companies.
The company has offices in Ireland and North America and serves clients globally.

The Order-to-Cash cycle includes all financial processes associated with receiving an order for a product or service, through to receiving payment. These could include order capture, credit management, billing, collections, dispute resolutions/deduction management, cash applications, financial reporting and analysis.
This acquisition expands IBM’s capabilities in Finance and Administration (F&A) transformation services, and will enable IBM to meet growing client demand for improved performance and greater benefits in the area of Order-to-Cash processing. Analyst firm, IDC projects that the finance and accounting business process outsourcing (BPO) services spending will be $16.5B in 2005.

IBM will combine Equitant’s heritage of client value creation through domain expertise and Order-to-Cash integrated solutions with its own consulting, managed operations and transformation methodologies to create significant financial, operational and strategic benefits for clients. These benefits provide our clients the opportunity to improve customer satisfaction, increase competitive advantage with better access to customer information, and enhance business flexibility, visibility and control. Additionally, clients will benefit from a reduction in operating costs, reduced profit leakage, more available working capital and minimized capital expenditure in order to drive bottom-line results.
“Our clients realize the value of partnering with companies that can transform, manage and operate Finance & Administration operations over a sustained period, and Equitant’s expertise in the Order-to-Cash area will enable IBM to better target this growing business opportunity,” said Donniel Schulman, Vice President, Global Finance & Administration BTO, IBM Business Consulting Services. “Equitant’s process expertise will be integrated with IBM’s expertise in finance and accounting analytics to enable clients to optimize this key element of their financial operations.”

“The acquisition of Equitant by IBM is exciting news for our clients and employees as both will be able to benefit from the enhanced capabilities of two F&A business transformation service providers to improve their opportunity for greater value creation,” said Paul French, Founder and Co-Chairman, Equitant. “Equally the acquisition provides a foundation for greater global reach in this high-growth business segment.”

More than 200 Equitant employees are part of this acquisition. The transaction, which will be reviewed by regulatory authorities, is expected to close in March. Financial terms were not disclosed.
About IBM Business Consulting Services IBM Business Consulting Services is a global consulting services organization with consultants and professional staff in more than 160 countries. IBM Business Consulting Services provides clients with business transformation and industry expertise, and the ability to translate that expertise into integrated, responsive, on demand business solutions and services that deliver bottom-line business value. Over the past several years, IBM Business Consulting Services has developed industry-specific transformation consulting skills and delivery capabilities in key areas, including Human Resources, Financial Management, Customer Relationship Management and Procurement.

About Equitant (www.equitant.com)

Equitant is driving business transformation outsourcing as a global provider of Order-to-Cash (O2C™) services, enabling corporations to measurably improve and manage their O2C™ cycle from start to finish.

Clients are lead to success from any starting point, whether they require a full solution or start with a subset of processes, business units or locations.

Equitant’s client value creation methodology offers quantum improvements by enabling People Transformation, Process Transformation and Technology Transformation - ultimately driving total business transformation by creating a scalable, sustainable O2C™ infrastructure. Equitant serves a number of Global 1000 companies and manages over $44 billion of revenues for its clients.

Equitant is majority owned by Accretive Technology Partners, a private investment firm focused on the business process outsourcing, IT enabled services and enterprise software sectors (www.accretivetechnology.com)





- press release -

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