Over the last 36 years, TechnologyOne has made just nine acquisitions. The most the Brisbane-headquartered enterprise software group has paid is about $20 million. Now, it is looking for bigger – much bigger – deals.

This month, the company disclosed it had taken a close look at an unnamed, publicly listed higher education software group in the United Kingdom. The purchase price would have been $300 million, and TechnologyOne dusted $2 million on due diligence. Eventually, the company determined that “the potential acquisition did not meet our criteria”.