JSE-listed technology group Alviva has agreed to buy competitor Tarsus in a R185 million deal.
The company announced to shareholders yesterday that it had concluded the transaction and is now awaiting regulatory approvals.
Pierre Spies, Alviva CEO, was former CEO of Tarsus.
Alviva says the Tarsus deal was motivated by its expansion plans of the current IT distribution businesses into the retail customer segment where it has limited exposure.
It says expansion plans for its product baskets by adding new vendors and the desire to grow its cloud solutions business also necessitated the deal.
Tarsus is one of SA’s value-added technology distributors, representing global hardware, software and information security brands.
Established in 1985, Tarsus Group has two main operating subsidiaries – Tarsus Distribution, the company that owns the South African, Botswana and Namibian IT distribution operations; and Tarsus on Demand, which operates a cloud solutions business.
Excluded from the transaction is the GAAP Point-of-Sale software business, which will be distributed, prior to Alviva’s acquisition, to the current shareholders
In the Thursday statement, Alviva says the audited value of the net assets of Tarsus that is the subject of the acquisition as at 28 February was R185.8 million.
“The audited profit after tax attributable to the net assets of Tarsus that is the subject of the acquisition for the year ended 28 February 2020 was R34.8 million,” it says.
The takeover of Tarsus is the latest acquisition by Alviva, which has been on a buying spree since 2017.
In October 2017, Alviva, through its subsidiary DCT Holdings, agreed to acquire 51% of the shareholding in Sintrex for R102 million. Sintrex is an infrastructure management company based in SA that provides end-to-end IT solutions and services.
The company had three months earlier taken control of Gridcars. Through its 51%-held subsidiary Solareff, Alviva subscribed for a 75% stake in Gridcars for R3 million. Gridcars is a Pretoria-based developer of electric vehicle charge-point software management systems and a supplier of charge-points.
The acquisition formed part of Alviva's renewable energy business strategy and it believes that growing a network of charge-points in SA will be the enabler of a carbon-free transport system.
In June 2019, the JSE-listed Alviva acquired 70% of enterprise software company Synerg SA, for R90 million, through its subsidiary DCT Holdings.
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