UXC reinvents itself with $1B ambition

Beverley Head
Wednesday, 22 June 2011 16:34

IT Industry - Listed Tech

Listed IT services company UXC Ltd has formally unveiled its new structure, and its ambition to become a locally based $1 billion a year IT services business - a particularly grand ambition as it was only a year ago that the company was considering selling off the entire operation.

Early last year UXC's then management team put the company on the block, inviting bids for its IT business units, intending to use any cash from that sale to reinvigorate its Field Services Group. That plan was flipped on its head however by new managing director Cris Nicolli, who was appointed to lead the company last November.

Mr Nicolli instead has put FSG up for sale (he expects this to be concluded around August) and will plough the spoils of that sale into reducing the company's debt. Today he told iTWire that the IT services business also had grand growth plans; 'We need to be a $1 billion company to compete with the multinationals.'

However he left the door open for mergers or acquisitions to achieve that target, rather than relying entirely on organic growth.  'I can see two or three companies coming together to form a significant IT company,' he said.

The company, which closes its books at the end of the month, has already told the market it expects to achieve $500 million revenues this year.

UXC today announced that it had overhauled its operations, forming three business units under the UXC Ltd umbrella which will start operating from 1 July. These consist of UXC Consulting, led by Nick Mescher, which brings together seven separate consulting operations, three separate applications businesses (Eclipse, RedRock and Oxygen) and infrastructure services business UXC Connect, led by Ian Poole, which brings three previously separate business units.

Mr Poole said that UXC Connect was currently the largest of the three business units, contributing $220 million to corporate revenues this year. However Mr Nicolli said it was the applications businesses that were the core engine of growth for the business in the future.