The current sale price translates into $320 million paid by Vista, compared to the $564 million spent on the Emdeon purchase. That latter figure is based on the rate of $1.90 to the pound that was given at the time of the Emdeon sale. Sage also said that healthcare had revenue of 72 million pounds for the first half ended March 30. That annualizes to 144 million pounds, down from the 160.3 million pounds reported for Emdeon Practice Services for the year ended Dec. 31, 2005. At the 2006 exchange rate fiscal 2005 revenue translates as roughly $304 million. At the current exchange rate of $1.54 per pound that estimated annualized revenue for fiscal 2011 comes out as $221 million. Sage Group chief executive Guy Berruyer said the proceeds would be used to finance a stock buyback program and that the sale would allow Sage to concentrate on its main businesses. The deal shows two things. First, it's another in a string of acquisitions of software companies by private equity firms. For example, the new Epicor Software is the result of two companies, Epicor and Activant, which were melded together after their purchase this year by a private equity group. Second, it shows that healthcare is trickier than many companies expected. In June, Thomson Reuters said it would sell its $450 million healthcare business because it lacked integration with other units and lacked global scale. Certainly, the Sage unit was not related to the financial application units that bring in most of its money and the Sage product line for healthcare is generally considered to be aged.