Digiland, eXeed deal off

A planned partial merger between distributor eXeed and Digiland has been called off -- at least for the moment.

In early September, Digiland announced it would offload its branded vendor distribution contracts to eXeed, in return for a major share in the Melbourne-based distributor. However, a disagreement - mainly over price - has meant negotiations over the deal have broken down.

Michael Bosnar, managing director at eXeed, claimed the equity deal was 'on hold' and there was an opportunity to revisit it. 'I think they've got other priorities at the moment in Australia and overseas,' he said.

Bosnar claimed, however, that the branded vendor distribution contracts acquired from Digiland were unaffected. 'The vendors signed up with us in their own right - if we receive the equity then all the better to the shareholders,' he said.

'[Digiland] are still interested in eXeed. We have a partnership where we buy from them and they buy from us, but they haven't made the financial investment at this stage,' he said. 'We've left it open for them to come back to us,' he added.

Digiland executives were not available for comment at press time.