SOFTWARE group Sage has bought a Swiss company in a £10m deal.

Sage, which is based in Newcastle, already has 59,000 customers in Switzerland and has bought business management software vendor Simultan.

The Swiss company specialises in accounting and payroll solutions for small to medium-sized businesses (SMEs).

Paul Walker, Sage chief executive, said: "The addition of Simultan to our existing Swiss business establishes Sage as the clear leader in the Swiss SME market.

"We can now offer a broad portfolio of products and services for the smallest through to the largest Swiss SMEs."

Sage bought the Lucerne-based company for £10.7m, but Simultan has net cash of £700,000.

Its 3,000 customers generated a revenue of £91.81m in 2003, with an operating profit of £250,000.

The acquisition comes only weeks after Sage announced a 20 per cent rise in annual profits, to £181m.

It attributed the rise to the overseas technology businesses it had bought, in the US, South Africa and Spain.

The only technology group in the FTSE 100 index, it employs about 8,000 people worldwide, including 1,850 in the UK.