£654m US tech deal

SAGE Group has snapped up a North American cloud technology firm for £654m.

The British software giant’s move to buy California-based Intacct was revealed by bosses as markets closed last night.

Sage said it would bolster the company’s cloud computing busi- ness as it moved away from ‘monolithic’, more traditional software.

Sage said Intacct served thousands of American businesses, providing finance management systems that operate on the cloud.

It posted revenues of £ 68m in the year to June, more than 90pc of it subscription-based.