IPVG to acquire US-based Internet solutions company for $10.5M

Information technology and gaming conglomerate IPVG Corp. has signed an agreement to acquire 100 percent of Florida-based Prolexic Technologies Inc., a leading global provider of Internet solutions involving distributed denial of service (DDoS), for $10.5 million.   

Prolexic Technologies, formerly DigiDefense International, provides cutting-edge solutions that protect Internet operations from the debilitating service disruptions caused by DDoS attacks.         

In view of this development, the Philippine Stock Exchange suspended yesterday trading in shares of IPVG pending disclosure of additional information on the proposed transaction. 

Prolexic provides free ongoing DDoS mitigation services to SURBL and URIBL, both industry-leading anti-spam sites which  have been under a series of DDoS attacks.

SURBL and URIBL are uniform resource identifier (URI) blacklist services that allow filters to efficiently identify unsolicited messages based on the websites advertised within the email. Both organizations offer free public domain name system (DNS) interfaces for easy integration with existing anti-spam software.

Founded in 2003, Prolexic was the first company to stop DDoS attacks as a scaling subscription service. 

Today, more than 7,000 URLs entrust more than 10 billion page loads monthly to Prolexic and depend completely on Prolexic to keep their sales, marketing, and customer service and support sites up and running. 

Earlier, IPVG signed an agreement to buy 70 percent of leading US-based Contact  Center Interactive Teleservices Corp. (Influent) in line with its bid to become one of the top BPO companies in the region by 2009.               

The deal is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2008 after IPVG completes its financial and legal due diligence on Influent. 

Influent, which is ranked among the top 20 global BPO companies, operates 10 call centers in three countries with a total of 1,400 seats in the US, Panama and the Philippines. It is a leading provider of multi-lingual outsourced business processes solutions catering solely to Fortune 500 companies in the financial services market.  

The US-based firm averages annual revenues of approximately $45 Million and pre-tax earnings of $4 million.           

IPVG is seeking a larger pie of the booming local BPO market which is seen to grow to $11 billion this year,  equivalent to over 500,000 seats by 2010, compared with a meager $2.1 billion and 200,000 seats in 2006.             

To remain highly competitive, IPVG remains on the lookout for more acquisitions and strategic partnerships with other foreign companies.