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  • MYOB to hire more Australian and NZ staff following Bain Capital buy

    Financial and business software vendor, MYOB, is set to hire 27 new staff following its acquisition by Hong Kong-based software investor, Bain Capital, from a consortium including Archer Capital and investment company, HarbourVest Partners, for $1.2 billion.
    Bain Capital's purchase was announced earlier this week, and the sale to Bain scotched recent rumours that global accounting software specialist Sage was the buyer.
    MYOB A/NZ corporate affairs general manager Julian Smith told Computerworld Australia that no job cuts were envisaged and it was “business as usual” following news of the acquisition.
    “We’re actually in the process of increasing our team across Australian and New Zealand by a further 27 people who will be partner evangelists supporting our accountant clients and introducing them to our next generation of cloud solutions,” Smith said.
    The company currently has 800 staff in A/NZ.
    Bain Capital managing director Walid Sarkis said in a statement that the growth potential for MYOB was "very strong", with a trend for entrepreneurs starting up their own business and that with Archer Capital, the company had met the needs of customers through Cloud-based capabilities.
    The acquisition was completed on August 21 after UK rival Sage Group dropped out of the bidding war due to tough times on the overseas markets.
    MYOB chief executive Tim Reed said the company was entering the era of the connected business and was now focused on cloud-based services.
    "Bain Capital is an ideal partner to take us forward given its proven successes in leading similar to higher ground in other parts of the world," he said.
    "Its portfolio group of management consultants can provide the expertise to take us through our next phase of growth."
    Last year, MYOB announced its move into the Cloud arena with the launch of online accounting offering LiveAccounts. At the time, Reed said the move into the cloud was about providing the company’s customers with choice and would initially complement, rather than replace, its on-premise software business.
    “We’re not standing in the marketplace having to peddle a story about cloud as the only way to go ... we are saying there are different products for different parts of the market," Reed told Computerworld Australia.
    Bain Capital has been involved with the Australian market for 15 years and has invested in companies such as drinks company, Frucor, and electronics manufacturer, Startronics.
    According to The Australian, the Archer Captial-HarbourVest Partners consortium paid A$450 million for MYOB in 2008, meaning it has nearly tripled its origuinal investment on the A$1.2 billion sale to Bain Capital.
    - Additional reporting by David Watson

  • Sage in running to buy MYOB

    Sage has confirmed it is bidding for MYOB, which was put up for sale recently by its owners, private equity firms Archer Capital and HarbourVest Partners.

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