Morse hints at spin-offs after Monitise success

Integrator Morse is considering incubating more businesses and spinning them off following the success of its Monitise demerger.

The firm last week revealed that the demerger, which was first mooted in April, is due to be completed on 28 June, following shareholder approval at an Extraordinary General Meeting on 25 June. Monitise will then be listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM).

Earlier this year, Morse completed its transformation into a ‘unified services company’.

Paul McCarthy, managing partner at Morse, said: “There are two or three opportunities that we are looking at around new technologies that we think we can take to market. We have also made good progress in the Building Schools for the Future scheme and are investing heavily in that area.

“We have got to look at the opportunities that come to us. Once the Monitise dust has settled we want to be really clear about Morse’s strategy. We will be putting more focus on our infrastructure consulting business and will also be doing more in the application consulting space around SAP and enterprise content management.”

McCarthy said Morse will also be looking at a ‘couple of acquisitions’ later in the year, but declined to comment further.

Darragh Richardson, head of marketing at rival integrator Telindus, said: “Most firms are looking to broaden their portfolio and they buy in the necessary skills rather than spinning them off. However, another argu-ment might be that spinning off businesses will help them to broaden their customer base.”

Graham Jones, chief operating officer at Integralis, said: “If someone wanted to buy a portion of Integralis, we would say no. We are more likely to look at acquiring a company and bringing the skills in. We are not an incubator, we are an integrator.”

Morse completes its corporate rebranding