SOFTWARE firm Sage continued its aggressive acquisition programme yesterday with a move into the Far East.

The Newcastle company paid £7m for a majority shareholding in a leading Malaysian software firm, as well as acquiring a small Chinese distributor.

The move comes weeks after Sage walked away from its biggest acquisition to date - a £334m bid for rival Norwegian business Visma.

The group yesterday said it had bought the 50.2 per cent share capital of Malaysian business management software group UBS Corporation. As required by Malaysian regulations, Sage will make an offer to the remaining UBS shareholders to acquire all outstanding shares, for the same price of 0.98 Ringgit per share.

UBS has more than 100,000 customers and for the year to December 31 grew revenues to £1.9m, while earnings before depreciation and amortisation were approximately £0.9m.

Sage, which is Britain's largest listed software company, also said that on May 16 it had acquired a Chinese Sage distributor comprising of SWA and Huatuo Software, for a small, undisclosed sum.

Paul Walker, Sage chief executive, said: "The acquisition of a controlling interest in UBS, and of distribution capability in China, together represent important early steps in our development of Sage businesses in the Asian region.

"These businesses bring important local expertise and deep knowledge of the requirements of Asian SMEs. We see significant potential to build on these acquisitions whilst increasing our knowledge of the Asian business software markets."

Since 2000, Sage has made 15 major acquisitions, strengthening its hold in the US and mainland Europe. Last year, it spent £162m on five acquisitions in France, Spain, Poland and Switzerland.

In January, Sage paid £184m for US payment processing company Verus Financial Management, based in Nashville, Tennessee.

In April, the group backed down from a £400m bidding war for Norwegian business Visma, after its offer was beaten by private equity firm HgCapital.

Two weeks ago, Sage said it was still chasing acquisitions as it unveiled a 19 per cent rise in first-half profits to £113.7m.