ONE of Perth’s biggest web developers, Webfirm, has been sold to West Australia Investments Ltd.
ONE of Perth’s biggest web developers, Webfirm, has been sold to West Australia Investments Ltd.
Established by Consolidated Business Media three years ago, Webfirm was sold to provide funds for the proposed national expansion of CBM’s expo business, according to CBM managing director John Webb.
“We have taken Webfirm as far as we could in the past three years. It grew from two people to over 30 and we had to move it out of our CBM office into its own premises on Adelaide Terrace,” Mr Webb said.
“It has had a rapid rise and has been profitable, while other companies have fallen away.
“The reason we sold it was that we wanted additional funds to expand the expo business nationally.”
Mr Webb sold his expo business to Exibit Exhibitions and Publishing in 1999 for approximately $2.5 million and re-entered the market three years later.
The timing of that re-entry is now the subject of legal action.
Exibit alleges CBM entered the market before its restraint period had come to an end.
Mr Webb said a similar restraint clause existed with the Webfirm business and that he had no intention to re-enter the web development industry.
“I have no plans to re-enter the web development market. It is not our core business,” Mr Webb said. “Our core business is events and expos.
“We only set up Webfirm and the publishing business [Australian Lifestyle Publishing & Australian Resource Media] to keep our staff employed until we could get back into the expo business.”
Australian Lifestyle Publishing & Australian Resource Media was sold to the Shields Media Group in 2003.
West Australia Investments director Norman Asch said he had been looking for a suitable company to acquire for more than 12 months, and he intended to expand Webfirm across Australia.
“My experience is in building businesses from a concept to an idea at all sorts of levels, from small business to IPOs,” he said.
“This is the domain I am most comfortable with. It is ready for the second stage of growth.
“Our business model is readily applicable to the east coast and Webfirm has already demonstrated its ability to transcend geography when servicing clients.”
