Public company Melbourne IT has appointed Martin Mercer as CEO and managing director, effective April 2014.
That is almost exactly one year since Mercer joined Optus as managing director, strategy and fixed, responsible for Optus’s fixed line business. He joined Optus from vividwireless, where he had been CEO for four years. Before that Mercer spent ten years in a number of senior management positions at Telstra, including heading up consumer marketing.
“Martin has an impressive resume in strategy, sales, marketing and product development and general management and brings with him a reputation for excellence in both strategy and execution,” said Melbourne IT chairman Simon Jones.
“He was selected after an extensive internal and external review by Sheldon Harris Consulting. We are absolutely delighted to have an executive of his standing on board to help define and lead a refocussed business into its next phase of growth.”
Mercer said he was very much looking forward to the challenges and significant opportunities of his new role. He should have plenty of both. Melbourne IT is cashed up but lacking direction. It sold its Digital Brand Services (DBS) subsidiary to US-based Corporation Services Company in March 2013 for $152.5 million, nearly as much as the whole company was worth.
The division was created in 2008 when Melbourne IT combined its Corporate Brand Services division with the Verisign DBMS business which the company had acquired for US$50 million ($48 million).
In August 2013 Melbourne IT reported its financial results for the six months ending 30 June 2013. Revenue was down 9% to $51.3 million, but profit on operations up by 4% to $2.5 million.
Not included in the operational data was the sale of DBS and the ForTheRecord divisions for a total $158.8 million, which resulted in a net gain on sales of $66.4 million in the first half and a statutory net profit after tax (NPAT) result of $70.3 million. Jones said at the time that the company was looking for the best way to return this to shareholders. That will be Mercer’s job – using the cash from the sale to determine new directions for the company. Given his background in telecommunications, he may well be considering expansion in that area.
Mercer replaces acting CEO Peter Findlay, who will return to the CFO role. Findlay stepped into the role temporarily following the resignation of long time CEO Theo Hnarakis in August 2013. The company said at the time that Hnarakis would stay on until a replacement could be found, but he quietly left in early December.
Mercer has a BA (Hons) and an LLB from the University of Sydney and a graduate Diploma in Finance from the Securities Institute of Australia. He also studied economics and finance at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University in the US as a Harkness Fellow (a US version of Rhodes Scholar).
