Up to 20 staff and founding shareholders in Dublin software firm SteelTrace will share in a windfall of more than €3 million after the sale of the company to Detroit-based group Compuware for $20 million (€16.31 million) in cash.
The other beneficiaries of the deal are Trinity Venture Capital, State business agency Enterprise Ireland and British software company Net Decisions. SteelTrace was established in 2001 by former Ebeon executive Fergal McGovern, who remains its chief technology officer. The company, which had retained losses of more than €5.62 million at the start of its current financial year, makes products that help software writers to meet the requirements of business clients.
SteelTrace's current staff of 15 will join Compuware as a result of the transaction. Its chief executive is Bernie Cullinan and its chairman is Paul O'Dea of Select Strategies, a sales and marketing consultancy.
"The addition of SteelTrace to the Compuware family of application delivery management solutions will allow us to help applications organisations more effectively collaborate with their business customers and deliver better applications faster," said Compuware senior vice-president, John Williams.
The names of staff and founding shareholders do not appear on the company's latest annual return, but they are entitled to some 20 per cent of the sale proceeds under a share option scheme. The Compuware deal values that stake at €3.26 million. The fund, which has €164 million in assets under management, will realise some €5.4 million from its 33.1 per cent stake in the business. The 8 per cent stake held by Enterprise Ireland realised some €1.3 million. The State body's original investment in SteelTrace was €400,000.
