Dimension Data Australia to acquire Oakton for $171 million

Oakton board said the acquisition is in the “best interests” of shareholders

Dimension Data Australia has entered an agreement with Oakton (ASX: OKN) to acquire 100 per cent of the company's shares for approximately $171 million.

According to an ASX statement, Oakton’s board has concluded that the acquisition is in the best interests of its shareholders. However, the acquisition is subject to Oakton shareholder approval.

Dimension Data Australia has offered Oakton shareholders $1.90 per share. Based on the 89.9 million shares held by investors, this equates to a cash offer of approximately $171 million.

Oakton is a technology consulting firm which has offices in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, Perth and Hyderabad, India. It employs over 1,100 staff.

According to Dimension Data Australia CEO Rodd Cunico, the two companies already had a partnership.

“In June 2013, Dimension Data bundled our ICT infrastructure integration, cloud, and outsourcing services with Oakton’s solutions. The partnership has proven to be very successful,” he said in a statement.

“With Oakton’s IT consulting capabilities and our technology expertise, we’ll be able to provide the type of end-to-end solutions our clients are seeking.”

In May 2013, Dimension Data acquired Australian managed security services provider Earthwave for an undisclosed sum.

During July 2014, Dimension Data director of solutions Neil Campbell told the IDG News Service it was planning to offer Earthwave's service worldwide.

Its roadmap for offering Earthwave outside of Australia is commercially sensitive, Campbell said, but is taking a slow-but-steady approach to scaling it.

The vendor has already doubled Earthwave's contract base in Australia and plans to use the lessons learned for how the business can be scaled.

"When you think about doubling its contract base in a relatively short period, that's quite a lot of demand," Campbell said at the time.

"One of the things that large companies are really good at doing with small companies is buying them and then destroying them with immediate overwhelming demand."

Follow Hamish Barwick on Twitter: @HamishBarwick

Follow Computerworld Australia on Twitter: @ComputerworldAU, or take part in the Computerworld conversation on LinkedIn: Computerworld Australia

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Tags acquisitionASXOaktondimension dataearthwaveacquistionsASX:OKN

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