Avand Hits Out at Objective After TechnologyOne Acquisition
Avand Hits Out at Objective After TechnologyOne Acquisition
October 17, 2007: Three of Australia’s largest information management providers have found themselves in three-way battle that’s seen TechnologyOne announce its acquisition of Avand and Avand announce it’s taken legal action against Objective Corporation.
Announced last week, the TechnologyOne move to acquire Avand came just weeks after Objective Corporation said it had commenced due diligence on the potential acquisition of the ECM provider. This process was to involve the evaluation of the target company and its assets for acquisition.
This week, Avand has launched formal legal proceedings against Objective Corporation, over what is says are misleading statements made in Objective’s ASX announcement of October the 12th 2007, regarding its failed acquisition bid.
Objective’s October 12 announcement states that Objective formally withdrew its offer to acquire Avand after “undertaking and completing the due diligence process.”
Objective listed its due diligence commencement with the Australian Stock Exchange on the 21st of September. On October 2, 2007, Chris Gorry, CEO of Avand says Objective advised Avand the company passed the due diligence processes and Objective would proceed with the offer. Gorry says it was a “great endorsement” for Avand, but did not represent certainty from all parties to settle.
Technology One entered into a Share Purchase Agreement to acquire Avand for $10 million, subject to its own due diligence process, expected to be completed in the next two weeks. The acquisition will enable TechnologyOne to offer Avand’s DataWorks solution as part of its suite of enterprise software solutions.
“I think there is very much a clear trend occurring in the market where organisations are looking to have a relationship with a single supplier for their enterprise applications,” Adrian Di Marco, Executive Chairman of TechnologyOne told IDM.
It’s good news for their staff, they will be working for a much larger company but they will continue to run as their own business unit,” said Di Marco. “We will still run each the independent products on the basis they have to be the best products on the market.”
Avand says it’s taken the action in order to ‘protect its reputation,’ which it believes has been damaged by the Objective statement. Namely, statements Avand says are untrue and the without clarification, “could lead to a view that Objective withdrew as a result of an adverse finding during the due diligence process.”
IDM contacted Objective regarding the Avand statement but at this point, the vendor has no comment.