Capita is winning the race to acquire business processing, technology and procurement specialist Xchanging against private equity firm Apollo, the Financial Times has reported, with the Xchanging board recently recommending that company shareholders accept the global service provider’s £412 million takeover bid.

This is despite the fact that Apollo made its own offer of 170p per share, 10p per share higher than Capita’s valuation of the Xchanging.

“Strategically there are few doubts that Xchanging is a good fit with Capita,” an analyst from Whitman Howard told the FT. “Clearly the numbers point to this being a good deal for Capita.”

For weekly news updates, subscribe to our email newsletter.

Related: One-fifth of all government IT spend goes straight to Capita