Familiar faces
The merging firms are both well-known, experienced players in the Polish IT sector. Matrix was only a whisker away from a bourse debut in 2005 when it decided to postpone its launch, after the British Sage Group bought Matrix‘s ERP Symfonia software, known to many small and medium-sized companies around the country, for L10.3 (zł.58.2) million.
Now Matrix is back at the gates of the Warsaw Stock Exchange, this time in concert with Infovide, and wants to raise up to zł.32.5 million from the floor.
„The funds will partly go into the financing of the second tranche of Matrix‘s shares. Some zł.1.5 million will be invested in IT solutions and tools boosting the company‘s development while the remaining funds, almost zł.20 million, will finance acquisitions,” said Jacek Królik, deputy CEO of Infovide-Matrix.
Finding a niche
The 11.44-percent stake in Matrix will cost the company zł.6.4-9.8 million, depending on the issue price, while the planned further acquisitions of IT firms will be worth some zł.19 million.
„We‘re interested in specialized, niche companies with interesting IT consulting know-how. I believe there will be a few such companies - maybe three but no more than five,” Królik explained, adding that he cannot exclude other acquisitions related to new share issues in the future.
Infovide-Matrix has already provided a schedule of planned acquisitions, and the preliminary agreements with the management boards and shareholders of the takeover targets are to be signed in Q1 2007. The actual realization of transactions will take place in H2 2007.
Looking east
According to Kobiałka, one of the most important reasons for the merger of Infovide and Matrix was to speed up expansion beyond the Polish market. Infovide-Matrix is interested in the entire CEE region, but recently its attention has been focused on Ukraine.
„We‘re realizing our first project in Ukraine and we certainly look at the market with great optimism,” Kobiałka said.
In October this year Infovide-Matrix set up a subsidiary in Kiev under the name of IMX, which will provide IT support to ZPD Steel, a partner of Ukrainian steel giant Donbas. It will also take over the implementation of Oracle solutions in PZU Ukraine.
Private party
Infovide-Matrix‘s key interest sectors include telecoms, banking and energy companies. Only seven percent of its revenues are generated by services provided to public administration, against 63 percent for telecoms companies, such as Plus GSM, Orange and Era. Last year revenues from the latter reached zł.52.5 million.
„The companies that counted too much on public-sector contracts have recently been very disappointed. In our case, 90 percent of revenues comes from the private sector, which is a big advantage,” said Borys Stokalski, deputy CEO of Infovide-Matrix.
Subscription dates
Subscription for Infovide-Matrix‘s shares will last from December 20 to 27, preceded by the book-building process, which was from December 15 to 18. Only 11 percent of the company‘s shares will be floated on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
Currently, the main shareholder of the company, Marek Kobiałka, formerly the CEO of Matrix, holds a 42-percent stake in Infovide-Matrix, through his company Well.com. After the IPO, his share will fall to 38 percent. Other important shareholders are Borys Stokalski (20 percent) and Jacek Królik (19 percent), previously the owners of Infovide, as well as employees of Infovide-Matrix (20 percent). After the IPO, Stokalski, Królik and the firm‘s employees will hold a 17-percent stake each.
In 2005 Infovide posted a zł.4.3 million net profit on revenues of zł.56.5 million, while Matrix.pl‘s net profit reached zł.9.4 million against zł.109 million in revenues. According to the prognosis for this year, the merged company‘s profit will equal zł.15.8 million, with revenues at zł.183 million.
Infovide-Matrix
CEO: Marek Kobiałka
Strengths:
- Detailed acquisition plans
- Not dependent on public-sector clients
Weaknesses:
- IT stocks can be volatile
- Only 11 percent of the company will float
Infovide-Matrix (IM) in its recently merged guise, is fairly fresh to the consulting and solutions implementation (CIS) market. The tie-up agreement between the IT-consulting specialist Infovide and custom-software provider Matrix.pl was signed in August this year, and the process of operational synchronization has only recently finished.
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