Sunday, August 19, 2007

Sensis sell Invizage

I said a few months back that Sensis would be looking to sell Invizage so the news they have sold it isn't a surprise.

The big surprise is the buyer. Peter Kazacos sold KAZ to Telstra, which was another failed attempt by Telstra to get into services. Now he buys a services business back from a Telstra subsidiary.

I'm sure Peter will do well with Invizage; he has experience with and understands IT service businesses. The problem for Telstra, Sensis and manner of Telcos, computer companies, software vendors and other businesses is they see the revenue but don't understand the work involved.

The interesting thing I've noticed over the three years Sensis have owned Invizage is how the domestic support arm shrivelled away.

Home IT support is a much different creature to business support and it obviously didn't fit the Sensis business model. One of the benefits Peter Kazacos will get from Sensis is he won't be paying for the domestic support operation that Invizage bought.

I can't help but suspect that Peter Kazacos' experience with Telstra is not unlike Kerry Packer's with Alan Bond.

I'm glad I no longer hold shares in Telstra.

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