Craig Somerville
Publicly listed managed services provider Atturra has made a significant move to acquire the Somerville Group for $15 million in cash and 1,647,059 Atturra shares.
This also includes an earn-out/post-completion consideration of up to $2.6 million in cash subject to Somerville achieving performance hurdles for the FY23 and FY24 financial years.
With a current share price of $0.91 as of publishing, this would bring the value of shares to just under $1.5 million. This results in a combined deal value of $19 million if Somerville meets the performance hurdles.
Headquartered in Sydney, with offices in Melbourne and Brisbane, Somerville provides a wide range of enterprise-grade managed services including cloud, connectivity, modern workplace, security and hardware and software lifecycle management.
Somerville also has a strong position in the education sector with its solutions mix which supports over 285 schools in Australia.
“The acquisition of Somerville will be significant, as it will not only provide Atturra with a broad-based managed services capability to facilitate large end-to-end projects, but it will also strengthen our position within the Australian education sector,” Atturra CEO Stephen Kowal said.
“We are excited to have the opportunity to bring Somerville into the Atturra fold, as it is a trusted technology partner with over 30 years’ experience offering solutions that will complement the Atturra offerings.”
As a result, sales director Adrian Toole, education director David La Bozzetta and CEO and founder Craig Somerville will join the Atturra team.
“This acquisition represents an outstanding opportunity for Somerville’s staff, clients and partners,” Somerville said. “Atturra has forged a strong reputation as a well-respected player within the Australian IT services industry, with long-standing client and partner relationships.
“Our strong focus on delivering quality outcomes to our valued customers will be enhanced by the breadth and depth of offerings that Atturra brings. Atturra opens the door to fantastic career opportunities for our team and the chance to work on a wide range of projects with the larger organisation.”
The transaction is expected to complete on or around 31 March, subject to the satisfaction of conditions.
Atturra posted a bumper half-year FY23 with both revenue and post-tax profit growing by a third in the six-month period.
The company posted revenue of $82.8 million, a 33.8 per cent increase year-on-year for the period ended 31 December 2022.
Net profit also reached $4.5 million for the first half of FY23, up 32 per cent from the previous corresponding period.
Meanwhile, underlying earnings before interest and tax (underlying EBIT) was up by 29.9 per cent to $8.7 million.
CEO Stephen Kowal told shareholders the Atturra team was feeling “continued high team morale”, calling it an “exceptional start” to FY23.
