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Canberra Today 25°/29° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Upbeat ‘iiVan’ leaps into his new world

AS the dust settles from the sale of TransACT to Perth-based telecommunications company iiNet for $60 million, TransACT CEO Ivan Slavich has already become accustomed to his new nickname “iiVan”.

It’s proved a far-cry from what he thought the sale would mean to the position he has held for the past two years.

“I always assumed that part of the deal was that the first to get the bullet was the CEO,” he said.

“But Michael [Malone, CEO of iiNet] said quite to the contrary: ‘No, Ivan we want you to stay on and we want your executive to stay and your team’.

“One of the things they were buying was our management expertise. And I think that is terrific.”

And he says he never feared his own future in the sale. “I’m quite confident in my abilities and capabilities, in fact I received a few job offers when it was announced and I had to reject them,” he says

“It was never ever a fear for me, maybe for my family, but not for me.”

A tip-off two weeks ago, leaked the sale to the press, however all lips were sealed until it was announced last week, which was “extremely frustrating” for Ivan because “I do like to comment”.

The sale of TransACT has been on the cards, however the real work towards its sale began only in June.

“The reality is that this has been a pretty long process,” he said.

“I was working with ActewAGL and TransACT, and I moved over to TransACT full time as CEO in November 2009, so this has all been a big process.

“I virtually rolled back all the services ActewAGL provided so that TransACT could be a stand-alone entity ready for a sale.

“The decision was really made to sell the business at the middle of the year.

“Since then we have worked really hard to make that happen.”

It was the impending exit of the company’s biggest shareholder, Hong Kong based, private equity firm TVG, as it reached the end of its investment cycle, that sparked the sale.

Although Ivan has the reassurances from iiNet CEO Michael Malone that there will be no redundancies, other concerns include sponsorship stability.

“There has been some concern about whether we are going to continue sponsoring the women’s basketball team the Capitals,” he said.

“The reality is that the term of that sponsorship is coming to an end and we are going to review it.

“The ownership of TransACT will bear no difference.”

And although the services TransACT provides to customers, current agreements, and the quality of customer care from staff will continue, there is no doubt there will be a restructure of the organisation

“The thing with ‘business as usual’ doesn’t mean no changes, actually I’ve wanted to make some changes in the company and I have mentioned that to my staff on Monday,” he said.

“I want to do a bit of a restructure to improve our customer service and to get good alignment with iiNet.

“I actually wanted to do it before, but our position has changed.

“All businesses need to evolve and restructure and shape themselves but that’s a normal evolution of any company.

“There will be changes but changes for the better to improve what we do for our customers to improve our shareholders, make sure we deliver for the community and our customers.”

iiNet’s acquisition of TransACT also means the company’s capabilities will improve with a major power upgrade already in motion for TransACT’s data centre, which will offer cloud computing and managed services for corporate and government clients.

“I think it will really turbo charge the company. I think it will really improve our capabilities in terms of products to customers and customer service,” he said.

“That means you have a lot of clout. Providing smart and innovative products to customers gives you a capability, a strong capability.”

Despite TransACT entering a new chapter, Ivan says he’s committed to his position as CEO.

“It’s a great job, it’s a great team here. I am really looking forward to working with iiNet,” he says.

“I can’t see any losers… sorry, I can – our competitors.

“Honestly, there will be competitors really concerned from the point of view that we are just going to get stronger.”

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Ian Meikle, editor

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