About Enprise Group

Listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange Alternative Market (NZAX) on 1 December 2014, Enprise Group (ENS) is an investment vehicle for high-growth tech companies that complement its core ERP capability. 

Enprise Group is invested in five businesses – the wholly owned Enprise Solutions, joint ventures Datagate Innovation and Kilimanjaro Consulting, and holdings in iSell and Vadacom.

Strategy: A platform for profitable growth

The business strategy behind the listing of Enprise Group on the NZAX is to create a platform for profitable growth through acquisitions as well as organic growth in existing business divisions.

Major areas of focus are on providing business solutions via the cloud; extending Enprise Solutions' and Kilimanjaro Consultings' network of branches across Australia and New Zealand; building a strong CRM practice based on Microsoft and MYOB offerings; and providing customised online reporting and billing portals for telcos, utility companies and hosted service providers.

Enprise Group's strategy for its investments is to unlock mutual synergies to accelerate growth for all. Vadacom and Enprise Solutions share a significant number of customers and have a similar target market. Datagate and iSell both target the same Managed Service Provider market and can link their sales and marketing functions to give each other sales introductions. The Kilimanjaro acquisition better utilises the cloud skills and infrastructure resources already deployed by Enprise Solutions.

These interlocking characteristics are a hallmark of Enprise Group’s wider growth strategy.

The journey to listing

The NZAX listing of Enprise Group is the latest chapter of a business journey that began back in 1997 when Mark Loveys cut the first lines of code of what is now MYOB Exo– the leading business software used by mid-sized companies across Australia and New Zealand. See The Exonet story

Exonet – as the software was called in 1997 – was a revolutionary business software suite that made modern enterprise resource planning affordable for mid-sized businesses for the first time. In August 2000 Loveys and his business partners sold Exonet to Solution 6 for A$30M. In 2004 Solution 6 merged with MYOB, and Exonet became known as MYOB Exo. Following that divestment, Loveys led a management buy back of the Enprise direct sales division of Exonet to form Enprise Group.

With funding from New Zealand venture capital firm TMT Ventures and the New Zealand Government Venture Investment Fund, cloud provisioning software company EMS Cortex was merged with Enprise Group, and Enprise Software – an SAP Business One specialist development and implementation divisions – was formed. In 2011 Citrix Systems acquired EMS Cortex and in early 2012 Loveys acquired all the shares of Enprise Group.

At the same time, DSQ Holdings Ltd (formerly Datasquirt Ltd) – another software company co-founded by Mark Loveys and listed on the ASX in 2009 – sold its software and operations to US-based LiveOps.

Following the sale of the Datasquirt business, the DSQ board announced to the market that it would be looking for a suitable business to acquire in order to build shareholder value beyond what could be achieved by holding on to the cash and liquidating.

Loveys offered Enprise Group to the DSQ board at an equivalent price as that paid for Enprise plus incurred costs. At the DSQ AGM shareholders voted to accept the offer, with Mark Loveys and Elliot Cooper abstaining.

“I am delighted with the outcome,” Loveys says. “Enprise is a profitable and growing business that I would be happy to own in my own right. But it will be an even better business as a publicly listed company with better access to investment and the means to grow faster through strategic acquisitions.

“The operating divisions of Enprise are ideally positioned in growing market segments. Enprise Solutions has momentum, reputation and cloud expertise that add up to a potent force in the MYOB Exo and MYOB Advanced markets across the region. Datagate Innovations customers comprise a strong global market vertical that Enprise can apply to its international sales channel and ERP-based partnerships.

“Our long-term objective is to build Enprise Group into a substantial software and services company and deliver outstanding value to our customers and shareholders,” Loveys says.