Shares in Xerox tumbled more than 14% on Monday after news of the printing group’s $5.7bn cash-and-stock deal to buy Affiliated Computer Services, a leader in back-office outsourcing.  The deal, coming after Dell’s purchase last week of Perot Systems and Hewlett-Packard’s 2008 acquisition of EDS, highlights the move by tech hardware makers into services with a steadier source of revenue. For Xerox, which has struggled with the transition to digital technology, the purchase of ACS will make it nearly as dependent on services as on hardware sales.

This entry was posted by Gwen Robinson on Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at 4:59 and is filed under Capital markets, M&A. Tagged with ACS, Xerox. Edit this entry.