Insurance sector software and IT services vendor the Innovation Group is expanding its presence in the motor accident claims market with the acquisition of a division of Akzo Nobel.
Innovation has agreed a deal to pay 850,000 euros ($1.2m) in cash for the majority of the assets of Nobilas Claims and Fleet Solutions, which provides automotive claims outsourcing services to pan-European and US companies.
The target operation was set up in 2003 by Akzo Nobel’s collision repair and fleet markets team and aims to provide a single point of contact to handle notice of loss, assessment, mobility services, and repair and claims management. It processes some 250,000 transactions every month.
In full-year 2006, Nobilas made a pre-tax loss of 13.3m euros ($18.9m) on sales that rose 44% to 11.4m euros ($16.2m), and the company said the loss was down to a high level of investment in ramping up scale in order to support larger volumes of work.
Innovation plans to roll the Nobilas assets into its Innovation Motorcare division, which itself processes some 200,000 claims per month, and will invest 8m euros ($11m) on integration costs in the year ending September 30, 2008.
Hassan Sidiq, Innovation’s CEO also gave a positive update on the company’s recent financial performance. He said its numbers for the fiscal year ended September 30 were ahead of schedule at a constant currency, and it had increased its expectations for the current year.