Success: IT firm sees gains in sharing the wealth

Intergen's staff have a right away stake within the company's impressive growth record.

Economic inequality is the recent topic at the present time. Even traditional free-market institutions similar to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have urged governments to adopt a more even-handed strategy to taxation and labour policy. Sustained economic growth and reduced inequality are "two sides of the identical coin", argue the IMF's Andrew Berg and Jonathan Ostry.

Many commentators have picked up on their findings to argue thon the regulatory pendulum has swung too far in favour of the holders of capital, at the expense of the labour force.

Tony Stewart, managing director and founding father of IT services company Intergen, agrees with that argument. But then he would, on condition that Intergen is owned by its staff, who share the rewards of a successful company.

Intergen's ownership structure reflects its beginnings: it was a management buy-back of Glazier Systems, of which Stewart was co-founder. The corporate have been sold to Advantage Group in 2000 for $7.5 million, and was bought back in June 2001 for an undisclosed amount.

There are practical reasons beyond fairness, which Stewart believes is vital, for sharing the wealth among Intergen's workers: when people have skin inside the game, they're prone to give 110 per cent, and the retention of skilled staff is is key, says Stewart.

"We take a extremely commercial view to sharing [company wealth]," he says. "They buy shares [in a closed tender], they receive dividends and that they sell their shares."

Staff cannot sell their shares externally, however, and there's a 50-shareholder limit thanks to complications concerning the Securities Act and the Takeovers Code.

When staff leave, as an example, they're compelled to sell and "while you do a transaction, you need produce a lot of information and make it available to the shareholders", Stewart explains.

"There is a lot of paperwork, it's expensive [and] it's quite annoying. We want as many staff as possible to be shareholders [and the act and the code] does limit the selection of individuals who will have shares - but [limiting shareholder numbers] keeps us out of trouble with the regulators.

"It'd be very nice if it wasn't so complicated," adds Stewart, a trained accountant who formed Glazier after running Ernst & Young's IT division.

But Intergen shareholders has been well-paid. The corporate has grown 25 per cent, year on year, since its inception in 2001. It recorded $3.5 million revenue in 2001 and, Stewart says, will exceed $40 million this financial year.

Then there are the proceeds from several successful side-ventures. Search press clippings for news about Intergen and also you won't discover a single decent profile of the corporate, but there are dozens of references to its investments in start-up firms.

"We've done a number of things prior to now that haven't been successful," Stewart admits, citing a bank card-clearing system the corporate built. But small business consultancy Aptimize, for instance, was sold last year to American firm Riverside for an amount that Stewart describes as lucrative, though he won't disclose how much.

Bigger things are expected of its investment in Parts Trader, a crash repair industry marketplace.

"It's sponsored by the insurance industry to guarantee they get the highest price for the precise parts," says Stewart. "We have a chance within the US, sponsored by a primary US insurer, to do the identical thing. The united states market is pretty interesting for us; it usually is huge."

One-off returns on investment are fine, but Stewart also expects revenue growth to accelerate: "We only did $2.5 million out of Australia last year and we've been bidding for work that might double that quantity in one project. Our objective is to be as a minimum as big in Australia as we're in New Zealand within five years."

The project work is prosaic to a non-techie - providing IT applications and bespoke developments, finance and customer relationship management systems, intranet, reporting, business intelligence and website integration.

But among the IT stuff is dead glamorous. Intergen works for Microsoft in Redmond, Washington, including building the demonstration models for the newest Microsoft applications for the brand new season.

"It is a little like creating a movie; it starts with a storyboard and we build each of the code that glues those applications together, so [chief executive Steve Ballmer] can wow the audience," says Stewart, who likens the method to hosting the Golden Globes.

By Nick Smith