The Idion Technology Holdings share price continued to climb this morning after the company became the target of a hostile takeover bid yesterday.
The share, which closed at 57c on Friday, was trading at 73c by midmorning today, 8c or 12.31% up on yesterday`s close of 65c.
The share soared yesterday after Canadian company DataMirror, a competitor of Idion`s US-based Vision Solutions, announced it would offer Idion shareholders 65c a share.
There will be more than just investors watching developments of the takeover bid. Local operation Idion Solutions made a high-profile move last year to use Microsoft exclusively as its development platform, and was made a Microsoft .Net preferred partner late last year.
Local Microsoft .Net strategy manager, David Setshedi says he will be in touch with Idion Solutions later today.
Setshedi points out that Idion was a .Net preferred partner only in the mobility space and that Microsoft has other partners operating in the same space, but says it would be presumptuous to make any decisions about future business until he has spoken with local Idion management.
"I will be putting a call through to [Idion Solutions CEO] Ken [Jarvis] later today; we don`t have all the facts yet. Idion only found out about the whole thing yesterday, so we needed to give them time to get to grips with the situation. No one knows what will be happening with the local operations."
Setshedi could not give any indication on how much of its .Net business went through Idion, saying it would be a violation of confidentiality between the two companies.
Idion itself has yet to comment on the bid. The company says only that it will make an official statement once its board has studied a letter from DataMirror.
DataMirror says it delivered a letter to Idion CEO Nicolaas Vlok on Saturday, proposing that it acquire the company by way of takeover. Idion shareholders would receive 65c a share.
"The proposal was rejected by Idion management, and based on discussions with its advisors, DataMirror has determined that it is necessary to proceed with its offer directly to Idion shareholders."
Toronto-headquartered DataMirror, which was founded in 1993, is listed on the Nasdaq and Toronto stock exchanges. Its product focus is on data integration, data resiliency and data monitoring.
The company, which has international offices in North America, Europe and Asia, has more than 300 employees and 1 500 customers worldwide.
Vision Solutions, which is DataMirror`s ultimate target in the takeover bid, has about 1 600 customers worldwide.
DataMirror reported last week that it had incurred a net loss of $5.66 million (or $0.49 per share) for the year to 31 January 2002, compared with net income of $4.71 million ($0.41 per share) the previous year.
Adjusted net income was $1.69 million ($0.15 per share) compared with a previous figure of $4.8 million ($0.42 per share).
The group says it expects to continue to grow and be profitable in the first quarter of fiscal 2003, with revenue expected to be between $14 million to $15 million.
Revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2002 was $14.33 million, compared with $14.2 million for the same period a year earlier. Full-year revenue of $55.74 million compared with $56.91 million the previous year.
The DataMirror share on Nasdaq, which has outperformed the Nasdaq Composite since November, closed at $7.26 yesterday, 3.2% down on Friday`s close.
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