BigAir picks up Anittel's hosting and network business

Australian fixed-wireless company BigAir has announced that it will purchase Anittel's hosting and infrastructure business for AU$6.5 million.

The agreement, announced on Friday, is expected to be settled at the end of January, and comes after PricewaterhouseCoopers completed a strategic review of the Anittel business after the company in August reported a net loss of AU$7.3 million in the last financial year, due to a fall in hardware and software revenues of AU$6.4 million for the year.

Another reason for the loss was the need for investment and expenditure around the company's telecommunications and cloud hosting contract with the Tasmanian government.

Anittel said the sale would allow the company to focus on expanding hosted collaboration services and the existing IT services and cloud business.

As part of the agreement with BigAir, Anittel said it would become a reseller of BigAir's products, meaning that Anittel's existing IT customer base will stay with Anittel, rather than shift to BigAir.

"This will see a continuity of the seamless service arrangements, with anticipated overall benefits to the service being leveraged from BigAir's scale and focus," Anittel said in a statement.

Anittel managing director Peter Kazacos indicated that some of Anittel's staff will be moving over to BigAir as part of the transaction.

"Staff who transfer to BigAir will have enhanced career prospects, as will the balance of staff retained in the [hosted collaboration services] and IT services-focused Anittel. This is a transaction that fundamentally recognises and takes into account market trends and the benefits of scale and focus," he said in a statement.

The finalisation of the agreement will depend on completion of due diligence by BigAir.