Just over a year ago we noted that the acquisition of Hampshire-based, Panacea by AIM-listed, mid-market ERP firm, K3 Business Technology Group (see K3 seeks Panacea for hosting relief) was more to do with Panacea’s managed services business than its software business. Indeed, we have spoken many times with K3 CEO, Andy Makeham about his ambitions to turn K3 from what is basically a Microsoft ERP VAR into a fully-fledged SME hosting play.
Well, K3 non-exec director – and near-20% stakeholder - Per Johan Claesson, is keen to see the transition move faster, and has mooted an (unspecified) offer for the company. Cleasson is a Swedish national whose principal business interests are in property development and real estate and is a director of a number of listed companies. He has a controlling interest in, and is Chairman of Claesson and Anderzen AB. The news has prompted the inevitable ‘strategic review’ of K3’s business.
A quick share tot-up of K3’s 8 ‘notifiable’ investors tallies to nearly 57% of the stock, with Blackrock the next largest shareholder after Claesson at 11%. Makeham and CFO David Bolton hold over 6% between them.
I have always had great admiration for Makeham’s pragmatic approach to the ‘cloud’. He completely understood that, as far as most mid-market customers are concerned, cloud is just ‘someone else’s data centre’. He simply wraps a cloud-like commercial proposition around what you and I know as a traditional hosting service, and, voila, the customer is ‘in the cloud’.
I had also seen K3 as a consolidator, cheekily suggesting that archrival Maxima would have been an obvious target. Probably just as well not, it turns out (see Maxima minimises!), though there’s still a story yet to play out there, I feel.
K3’s shares had been suffering of late, down nearly 40% ytd. Nonetheless, mid-market hosting is a hot area and I suspect that Claesson would not likely get his way at anything that looks like a bargain-basement price.
