Britehouse gets OneArch approval

Johannesburg, 31 Oct 2007

Investment company Britehouse Group has received Competition Commission approval for its acquisition of a 75% stake in OneArch.

The balance of the shareholding will remain in the hands of OneArch`s management team, says Britehouse. The value of the deal has not been disclosed.

Britehouse is a spin-off of Dimension Data`s investments in the software industry. A black empowerment consortium - including Andile Ngcaba`s Convergence Partners - owns 60% of the company`s shares. Its interests include 58% of 3fifteen, 93% of Automate, 31% of Paracon, and 75% of Pebbletree Consulting.

Last month, company CEO Scott Gibson said its aggregated revenue was around R1 billion.

Leveraging synergy

The OneArch purchase is the group`s first acquisition outside of the Dimension Data Group.

Says Gibson: "We have stated our intentions to investigate and conclude acquisitions in order to complement our various offerings; the acquisition of One Arch is an example of this."

Gibson adds the acquisition will enable the company to leverage synergy between several of its other investments.

"At group level, the company is now capable of drawing on nearly 200 specialist SAP resources within its investments in Pebbletree and OneArch, to create an extremely competent SAP practice that has the scale to handle some of the largest projects undertaken in the local market.

"Britehouse`s investment in ICT resourcing and solutions company Paracon means we have access to over 3 000 resources inherent within the Britehouse brands as well as Paracon. We therefore have the ability to leverage each other`s past success and become the best software application services business in this market," he adds.