Listed IT outfits striding out

Publicly-listed IT firms in Perth have been celebrating recent contract wins, acquisitions, key executive appointments and international strategic alliances to guide their respective businesses beyond 2010.

None more so than IT services provider ASG Group, which last week announced a new contract with Vodafone Hutchison Australia. Worth some $28 million for the provision of corporate IT support services for an initial term of five years with two one-year extension options, the deal brings the company’s new contracts value this year to $140 million.

This recent contract, a continuation of ASG’s relationship formed with Hutchison Telecommunications in 2006 – which then merged with Vodafone in 2009 – is in addition to other recent milestones for the company.

At the start of the month ASG announced its third acquisition in the past year, buying east coast IT consulting firm Capiotech for $30 million.

ASG chief executive Geoff Lewis said the Capiotech acquisition capped off a deliberate strategy to boost ASG’s capability in key, high value service areas.

“There’s another couple of acquisitions we’re working on as we’ve still got some holes to fill,” Mr Lewis said. “2011 is going to be very strong.”

Capiotech followed the acquisitions of Melbourne-based IT consulting group Dowling Consulting (for an undisclosed sum) and SAP software provider Courtland Business Solutions in a multi-million dollar cash and scrip deal, which opened the SAP market to Oracle-focussed ASG for the first time.

At the end of May, Empired struck up an exclusive partnership with large capital project information and cost control systems supplier, Coreworx, which is a subsidiary of Nasdaq-listed Acorn Energy, targeting energy and resources projects in Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia.

Coreworx’s software, currently utilised in complex engineering projects globally, combined with Empired’s presence in the region means the companies will target outfits looking to develop major capital projects.

Specifically, the alliance said it will immediately focus on the $175 billion in capital expenditure announced in Western Australia with $75 billion already in train.

Darwin-based ICT outfit CSG said in June that its enterprise services stream had closed numerous long-term contracts worth approximately $22 million across both public and private sectors.

The largest and most recent was a seven year contract with Victoria’s Department of Treasury and Finance for the development of a 600-user state budget and reporting system.

CSG also recently signed a five-year deal with AJ Lucas for the implementation of the Oracle eBusiness Suite and contracts with the New South Wales government and IDP Education.

Earlier in the year Stirling-based Synergy Plus secured new chief executive Garry Henley, locking in the founder and former chief executive of Alphawest Services for a remuneration package worth $312,000 plus performance-based incentives.

Mr Henley said that his 25 years of IT experience and leadership during Alphawest’s sale to Solution 6, subsequent management buy out and then through its acquisition by Optus-SingTel were key advantages to leading Synergy through its cultural transformation across the entire organisation and its future planned growth.

Synergy also announced the proposed acquisition of South Australia’s C&PA business in April in return for up to 1.5 million Synergy shares once certain conditions were satisfied.