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Auckland-based software company Talgentra has been bought by a private investment company linked to former beer baron Douglas Myers and former APN News & Media chief executive Cameron O'Reilly.
Talgentra makes the Gentrack power billing system used by almost all New Zealand electricity retailers.
James Docking, Talgentra's chief executive, was looking for a suitable buyer for the company and found it across the Tasman in Bayard Group, which in five years has become the global market leader in electricity metering.
Bayard, founded by O'Reilly, focuses on technology that can help improve the environment. Myers is a shareholder with media proprietor John B. Fairfax and Australia's Seven Network chairman Kerry Stokes.
Talgentra had been part of the London-listed Sanderson, which was taken private by European buy-out fund Alchemy in 1999. Other specialist software businesses within Sanderson were refloated or sold, with Talgentra the last part in the Alchemy portfolio.
This week's sale puts the company in the hands of Bayard, and ANZ Capital and management, with Bayard executive director John Clifford chairing the board.
Docking said it would have been hard to find a New Zealand company large enough to buy the business back from its European owner.
"We wanted to bring it back to an Australasian business because we have so much business in this part of the world," he said.
"The owners understand our vision and market. Bayard specialises in the utilities sectors, and it has the fortitude to go for some of the acquisitions which are available worldwide in this business."
There is major change occurring in the utilities billing and customer information systems market, as providers struggle to keep up with deregulation and new technologies.
Business software giants Oracle and SAP have moved aggressively into the sector, with Oracle in particular buying up many software providers.
Docking said that creates opportunities for Talgentra, as many customers want the skills and attention which comes from a specialist provider.
Talgentra's results for the year ended September 30, 2006 showed a pre-tax profit of $3.8 million on revenue of $15.4 million.
Docking says revenue is now more than $20 million, as Australian utilities shop around for new systems to cope with deregulation.
Customers in New Zealand include Genesis Energy, Contact, Meridian, Trustpower, Vector and Powerco.
Tasmanian company Aurora Energy is currently installing Talgentra's new mDATA21 product.
This software allow utilities to manage the huge volumes of data coming from smart meters, which check power consumption every quarter or half hour and send the reading back to a central server.
