Buyback at a discount

By ADAM GIFFORD

Iguana2 founders Adam Rands and Scott Cooper have bought back their company from listed Australian software company Solution 6 Holdings.

The price was not disclosed, but Rands said it was less than the A$1.4 million ($1.6 million) Solution 6 paid three years ago for the stock market information service, then based in New Zealand.

"Times have changed from 1999. Both parties are happy with the price," Rands said.

"Solution 6 said they were divesting non-core interests. We realised we were non-core and for the good of clients and the good of the company, we approached them.

"For them, we are six people out of 1000, doing something different from the rest of the company.

"Iguana2 is not costing them any money but it is not making any either. It is not interesting for them, but it is a great little business for us."

Rands and Cooper started Iguana2 in Wellington in 1994 to supply sharemarket data to brokers, websites and listed companies.

They moved to Sydney after the Solution 6 chief executive at the time, Chris Tyler, swept them up as part of an acquisition spree aimed at turning Solution 6 into an application service provider delivering software and services to accountants online.

The charismatic Tyler and his "e-ccountancy" vision were dumped amid revelations of a drugs conviction.

Under his successor, former Tyco executive Neil Gamble, the company is concentrating on its professional services practice management software products.

"The deal when we shook hands with Chris was we would handle broking services to accountants, but things got blurry and messed up there for a while," Rands said.

The company would stay in Sydney, and expected its growth to come from Australia and Asia.

"Many of our major customers are still in New Zealand and we will continue to service them," he said.

The company is completing a major overhaul of the Access Brokerage website. It also runs the ShareChat.co.nz and Stocknessmonster.com sharemarket information websites.