Fujitsu sells off Teamware stake to 3i

NEWS Fujitsu has continued its wholesdale re-branding exercise with the sale of collaboration software subsidiary Teamware to venture capital group 3i. Fujitsu and 3i declined to give a value on the deal which will see 3i hold 46 per cent of the 20-year-old Finnish software company. Fujitsu will now hold 43 per cent and the existing management 11 per cent. Teamware was once owned by Nokia but in 1991 was bought by then-independent UK IT group ICL. Still headquartered in Helsinki, Teamware became an ICL brand, continuing after the takeover of ICL by Fujitsu. Rauno Toivonen, CEO and president of Teamware, said the deal was about getting access to the kind of money and contacts 3i could provide. "We're looking to make acquisitions in the UK and the Netherlands and we needed finance for acquisitions and growth. An external company like 3i gives us new contacts and the flexibility to expand," he said. The disposal is part of a reshuffle which last month led Fujitsu to formally announce the end of the ICL brand, as the whole company is reorganised as a global IT-services provider.