News Item 

28th November 2006

Supporta Property Services Agree Terms for Another Acquisition

The acquisition of TerraQuest, which is expected to complete on 4 December 2006, follows very quickly after the acquisition of Bay Associates on 6 November 2006. Recently Bay Associates became part of Supporta Property Services and TerraQuest will also join this division. Following this acquisition, Supporta will have 30 offices in total throughout the UK, with a number of staff operating from client sites, increasing our geographic spread and range of services nationally while importantly maintaining local presence. TerraQuest will further enhance the Supporta Team by integrating 177 staff members into Supporta Property Services in addition to more than 30 who joined Supporta early in November from Bay Associates.

TerraQuest is a land and property consultancy and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) organisation operating out of six locations in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland servicing the Local Government, Central Government and Private sectors. The business was established in 1972 to deliver land research work required for the Tyne and Wear Metro and then other large public infrastructure developments. TerraQuest provides development corporations and similar bodies with all of the information about the lands affected by a proposed development scheme and the rights people have over that land - enabling developments to be approved by Parliament.

The business has expanded to provide Geographic Information Systems (GIS) consultancy and data conversion and scanning services for customers who want to make use of GIS for a number of applications including:

• Land use planning
• Utilities management
• Landscape assessment and planning
• Transportation and infrastructure planning
• Facilities management
• Real estate analysis
• Urban regeneration

More recently the business has extended its service offerings into the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) market through the contractual relationship it has developed with BT.

The company currently undertakes transaction processing, on BT's behalf for Land Registers Northern Ireland (LRNI), Registers of Scotland (RoS) and Disclosure Scotland as part of the public Private Partnerships BT has agreed with these Government bodies. At LRNI, the company processes changes of land ownership data requests from solicitors when property ownership changes hands. At RoS, the company provides data quality assurance services. At Disclosure Scotland, the company processes applications for disclosure of criminal records made to Disclosure Scotland

Supporta intends to build upon the foundations laid by the management team of TerraQuest through developing its existing and target customer base. We believe that significant opportunities for market synergies exist with our existing Property Services Division in particular with the Registered Social Landlord Market and through existing scanning capability within the Group. In addition TerraQuest does not currently operate within the Health Sector which we believe is a significant opportunity for expansion. Clients and Staff of Supporta and TerraQuest will benefit from the opportunities this acquisition presents.

Stephen Padgett, Chief Executive Officer, commented,

'TerraQuest is a well established business, with an excellent reputation in its current markets. TerraQuest is at the heart of managing land and property information and has developed an exciting BPO offering. We believe that this acquisition will provide Supporta with a significant opportunity to widen our range of outsourced solutions to our existing clients and target markets.'

For further detailed information on the acquisition click on this link to be directed to our Investor Relations pages (see Latest Announcements).

Details on TerraQuest's services can be found within the Property Services area in the Supporta plc website (www.supportaplc.com) or on the current TerraQuest website by clicking on the link below

TerraQuest Solutions

Back to news listing