Sybase SA's CEO, Alan Cowley, has bought the 51% stake in Sybase SA formerly held by state-owned Denel.
The value of the deal has not been disclosed.
"I will hold the majority of the shares in the business, with Sybase Inc holding a minority, though with the strategy going forward to involve management and a significant portion going to a black empowerment partner," Cowley says.
Sybase is structured into three business lines -- business intelligence, data management and mobile technology - focused on selling software infrastructure solutions.
"We have some very solid customers in our customer base," Cowley says. "These include all the big banks, insurance companies, Pick 'n Pay, Telkom - the large names in the industry. That's very exciting in that we can mature the idea of these different divisions, the practices, and continue to deliver and introduce other solutions in this space."
Denel says that in terms of the initial acquisition in 1995, Cowley and Denel each had first right of refusal to the other's shares in the event that either party wanted to sell. "As we were looking to sell our shareholding in line with our strategy, Alan has exercised his right," it says in a statement.
Cowley adds that Sybase had been wanting to buy itself out of Denel for some time, and that the deal followed protracted negotiations.
Teenage business
"We want to bulk up as a business," says Cowley. "We think that we're a teenage business rather than a baby business. Often when you start a business you have to grow it into something, but we have 15 years of operational profit.
"And we see ourselves as having been constrained somewhat by our relationship with Denel because they've been looking to exit their IT interests, and so they haven't been focused on IT. But because we have managed to get ourselves out of those clutches we now have the ability to forge something new and very exciting, and we think the landscape for that exists today."
Cowley says the company is "very aggressively engaged with a number of players" with a view to securing a black economic empowerment partner. "I wouldn't rule out a merger, but for the most part we are looking at shareholding," he adds.
Sybase has 120 staff members, with offices in Lagos, Nigeria; Nairobi, Kenya; and Casablanca, Morocco.
"As a fully independent company, we will be able to aggressively drive our strategy of becoming a broad-based IT infrastructure company," Cowley says. "We have many options, including spinning off our dedicated lines of business - what we call our practices - into separate, discrete companies.
"Another option we have is to add a solutions delivery component. We will be guided by what the market and our clients tell us."
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