€1m IT deal 'great start for Unity business'

UNITY TECHNOLOGY Solutions, the company that emerged from the Calyx receivership in September, has done a €1 million deal with the oil and gas exploration group, Petroceltic.

The exploration group has hired Unity to provide outsourced information technology services for its headquarters in Dublin and its offices in Europe and North Africa.

The deal is understood to be worth over €1 million to Unity, and is one of the first major new contracts won by the company since it took over the Calyx business in the autumn.

Unity’s chief executive, David Hargaden, said at the weekend that the deal was a great start for the business, which inherited more than 7,500 customers from Calyx.

“We had a strong belief in the business model and service quality that we were bringing to the market and this has been borne out by securing this significant contract with Petroceltic,” he said.

Petroceltic chief executive Brian O’Cathain said the new system would allow the company to operate from a single IT platform across all its offices.

The company explores for oil and gas in the Mediterranean region, where it has operations in Italy and North Africa.

Last September, Better Capital, led by Jon Moulton, former boss of buyout firm Alchemy Partners, funded management’s purchase of Calyx’s Irish operations through a new vehicle, Unity Technology Solutions. The deal allowed Unity to take over the customer contracts, assets and stock from Calyx, while the new company also hired the business’s workers.

There are now 75 full-time and 50 contract staff working for the new company which is debt-free and fully funded. Calyx was a diverse technology business with operations in Ireland and Britain that was struggling with debts of more than €100 million.