Auckland software company Enprise will, in November, become the second-only New Zealand company to list on Australia’s junior National Stock Exchange.
Founder Mark Loveys has a track record of multimillion-dollar trade sales in the information technology sector, having previously sold three businesses he helped found to overseas buyers for a combined $60 million.
He said his goal now was to establish a strong trans-Tasman business, based in New Zealand but utilising the cloud, with sales offices in most Australian state capitals.
“We have got a strong team in our Auckland office and we can lever their skills across Australasia using remote support tools. What we have found is customers like to have ‘somebody local’ as the face of the business, but they are quite happy for all support to be provided out of a central office.”
Enprise employs 40 staff, 10 of whom are in Australia, and has three main tranches to its business. It implements and supports a popular business software system originally called Exonet, now rebranded MYOB EXO, that Loveys developed and then sold in 2000 to Australia’s Solution 6 for $30 million.
This year it began offering a cloud-based version of MYOB EXO through a joint venture with an Australian hosting provider. It also sells a job-costing software module as an optional add-on for BusinessOne, a rival enterprise resource planning (ERP) software system, made by German software giant SAP.
Loveys said Enprise was cashflow positive and was not planning to raise any additional equity through the National Stock Exchange (NSX) in the immediate future, and none of its existing major shareholders planned to sell out.
But he said the listing would let the company issue stock as an incentive to staff and partner businesses and could be a stepping stone on to the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX).
“With the growth we are experiencing in Australia, it is nice to have that connection.”
The NSX – not to be confused with New Zealand’s NZX – was originally spun out of the regional Newcastle Stock Exchange and lets investors trade shares electronically. It is home to 69 listed equities and 50 debt equities with a combined market capitalisation of A$3.5 billion (NZ$4.4b).
The only other Kiwi company to float on the exchange was miner Heritage Gold, which delisted in 2007 and is now dual-listed on the NZX and ASX as New Talisman Gold Mines.
Enprise sold subsidiary EMS-Cortex to United States technology giant Citrix for about $18m last year. Loveys also co-founded Datasquirt which listed on the ASX and was sold to Californian company LiveOps last year for a reported $16.5 million. Datasquirt’s now empty shell company is being used as the vehicle for Enprise’ NSX listing.
– © Fairfax NZ News
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