Redcore buys Planwell

Australian security specialist Redcore bought the business assets of IT management company Planwell Technology to become the largest privately held security company in Australia with 110 staff, the companies claimed.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

Under the terms of the deal Planwell will keep its name and operate as an independent division of Redcore. Redcore specialised in authentication, cryptography and integration development related to identity and access management.

Planwell provided IT management services to big Australia’s organisations and was recently engaged by IBM and the National Broadband Network to implement its operations support systems. 

“Redcore’s strategic focus on deploying large, mission critical systems will be retained, as Planwell and Redcore provide IT service management, core network and security for some of the region’s largest government and corporate IT operations,” said Redcore joint managing director Joseph Failla.

He said that although the companies operated in separate markets, they identified opportunities to work together to deliver managed security services through the cloud, as well as bolting security onto existing cloud services, demand for which had increased sharply in the wake of recent breaches reported at Sony, Amazon, Google and others. 

“We see a lot of things happening with the security-as-a-service-model,” he said. “Everything is moving towards virtual offerings.”

Redcore has provided IT security systems and services to Australian government agencies, banks and other financial institutions and is one of Oracle’s largest security partners in the Asia Pacific, it said.

It recently deployed its AUSkey, invisible PKI (public key infrastructure) credential solution at Treasury and the tax office; it was used by 400,000 businesses. Redcore also designed a solution for secure online banking called KeyVault.

It formed last year following the merger of Australian security companies 443 and Castela. The combined entity turns over about $20 million and was expected to reach $30 million in a year, Failla said.

He said it was “actively seeking” acquisition targets in Australia and overseas.

The merger was not expected to disadvantage channel partners, the companies said.