Imago future almost certainly to end with a business sale

DIRECTORS of multimedia firm Imago will this week announce the company’s future – a future that will almost certainly involve the sale of the business.

Last week WA Business News reported that a consultant to Imago had received bids for the Imago business, on some or all of its assets, from at least six other firms.

Indeed the business’s sale has been a topic of gossip around the IT industry for some time.

When WA Business News contacted Imago again this week to discuss the company’s movements, both Imago chairman James Milner-Yates and consultant Andrew Parkinson again declined to clarify the company’s future.

However, Mr Milner-Yates said he would provide details of any events soon.

“There’s just a couple of things that we’ve got to go through and then you can have it all,” he said.

Mr Milner-Yates agreed there was talk that company director Mark Leaker would fly interstate to discuss a deal, but nothing on that matter had yet been confirmed.

Mr Milner-Yates said the business community was “full of rumours” but he was willing to fully disclose the company’s movements “in the next couple of days”.

Recent negotiations – and they have occurred – have not involved Imago CEO David Clarke, who has been in London attending a wedding. Mr Clarke is due back in Perth early next week.

Imago is substantially owned by Murdoch, Edith Cowan and Curtin universities and was incorporated as a Cooperative Multimedia Centre in 1995.

One of its grand ambitions was to create a global multi-media network to process film imagery, largely for the Imax industry.