iomart Group Plc, an AIM-listed data and hosting services company, has acquired rival RapidSwitch for £5.25 million in cash.

RapidSwitch currently manages more than 4,000 servers on behalf of 1,600 clients, ranging from SMEs to large corporates. The company reported revenues of £2.6 million in the year to March 2008.

Angus MacSween, CEO of iomart, said: “iomart’s strong balance sheet is the direct result of our recent disposal of a non-core directory business to BT, which released cash to make strategic acquisitions.”

MacSween added: “The market reaction to our focus on the provision of managed hosting and data centre services has been very encouraging to date, and we are convinced that our acquisition of RapidSwitch at this stage in iomart’s evolution will accelerate growth opportunities and profits for the group.”

In the six months ended 30 September 2008, iomart reported revenue growth of 58 per cent to £5.7 million and net profit of £12.5 million.