Melbourne IT buys UK domain manager

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 23 January 2007 06:27

Your IT - Home IT

Melbourne IT Limited (ASX: MLB) has bought UK-based domain management company, IDR Management Services Limited, a move which it expects will contribute more than $A1.0m in revenue and $A0.25m in EBIT during the 2007 financial year.

Melbourne IT will make an initial cash payment and further payments based on revenue targets being achieved in the next two years. It expects the final price to be between $A1m and $A2m. T

"IDR was a pioneer in the UK corporate domain management space and during the past eight years has built an impressive client base of FTSE 100 companies and trademark attorney firms," said Melbourne IT CEO, Theo Hnarakis. "Together, we plan to build upon IDR's success by overlaying Melbourne IT's rich product set, its significant scale of operations and its trusted domain management systems on IDR's proven track record of offering customised solutions to its clients."

He said that, during 2007, the company would "continue to seek further acquisitions within the global Internet industry that will grow our business and capabilities while, at the same time, enhancing shareholder value."

The company has provided and update on progress, saying that preliminary results for the 2006 financial year "indicate that all Melbourne IT divisions have outperformed expectations." It said the costs associated with the integration of WebCentral Group had been less than anticipated. As a result, the Group expects to report EBIT in excess of $8.0m (excluding the profit on the sale of Neulevel reported earlier in 2006) when its results are released on 20 February 2007.

"We are confident of exceeding our earlier forecast of at least $2m in synergies in the full year 2007 arising from this acquisition," said Hnarakis.