Volante, Ipex merger approved

Shareholders have approved the $480 million merger of integrator Volante with services provider and box-builder Ipex ITG.

The merged entity - which will keep both brands - will be Australia's largest IT infrastructure and services company. Plans for the merger - which involved issuing $70 million in shares in return for all shares in Ipex -- were revealed publicly just before Christmas.

Volante's presentation to shareholders yesterday, 12 February, highlighted what it sees as an opportunity to extend customer capability, ramp up corporate and government business.

'The new Volante Group ... [is] large enough to be financially secure for a long term future [and] large enough to provide world class solutions for our customers,' the company said in its public statement.

Allan Brackin told CRN just before Christmas, when the conditional agreement was signed, that the merger was not about rationalisation so no jobs were expected to go.

 'This is about growing both businesses,' he said then. 'Volante's share of government business has not been huge, but a share of government business is very important to us and one of the reasons this opportunity is a great fit.'

Volante Group said at its meeting that Ipex sales, service and delivery division will be merged with that of Volante Systems, but Ipex Manufacturing will run as a separate division under the new Volante Group umbrella.

Ipex' software applications team will be incorporated into Volante Solutions, it said.
However, the Global Remarketing and Affinity divisions will remain unchanged, the company said.

In the new Volante Group, Volante Solutions was forecast to earn $10.5 million, Volante Systems $455 million, Ipex Manufacturing  $89 million, Affinity IT Recruitment $8.5 million and Global Remarketing $5.3 million in revenue each year.

Sites across Australia would be effectively merged by 1 March, while merger appointments were slated to be concluded by 1 April, the company said, with full sales and management team integration expected by 1 July 2004.