Microsol, a Dublin-based company that provides software to the electricity industry, has been acquired by India's Crompton Greaves in a deal valued at €10.5 million.

As well as its Dublin headquarters, Microsol has operations in the UK and the United States.

Since its foundation in 1988, it has raised more than €18 million from its shareholders which, prior to yesterday's acquisition, included ICC Venture Capital and New York fund Cairn Holdings. Enterprise Ireland and Anglo Irish Bank also held stakes.

Crompton Greaves is an Indian multinational which designs, manufactures and markets products for the generation, transmission, and distribution of power.

It acquired Microsol through its Belgium-based subsidiary Pauwels, which it bought in May 2005 to become one of the top 10 electrical transformer manufacturers in the world.

Microsol chief executive Martin Kelly said the backing of a multinational parent would give the company the scale to compete in international markets.

"Over the past 15 years, Microsol has developed world-class products and services for power utilities and meets the needs of its customers from its Dublin head office and its regional offices in Newcastle, UK and Connecticut, USA.

"Microsol's board and management team concluded that the company needed to be part of a larger group in order to fully realise the benefits from this investment and this transaction with CG Pauwels meets this requirement perfectly," he said.

Corporate finance house IBI advised Microsol on the deal, which will see existing management stay with the company following the takeover.

The latest accounts for Microsol for the year ended March 31st, 2006 showed that it made an operating loss of nearly €1 million and a loss on ordinary activities before tax of €2.8 million.

However, Mr Kelly said the company made an operating profit of €1 million at the end of March 2007 on turnover of €8.5 million.