blog Freelancer chief executive Matt Barrie shocked a few in Australia’s tech sector with his mid-September rejection of a $400 million offer from a Japanese HR and recruitment giant to buy his company. The executive’s decision to list his company on the Australian Stock Exchange instead was similarly controversial. However, as I write in Delimiter 2.0 today (subscriber content), Freelancer’s not alone. There’s half a dozen other technology industry companies seeking to list on the ASX late this year or early next. A paragraph from the article:
“Australian technology companies have been virtually absent from the the nation’s public stockmarket over the past decade as the stigma of the dot com bust took its toll on investor confidence. But a clutch of new listings planned for the closing months of 2013 shows renewed interest in the sector and that local entrepreneurs are smelling money in the air once again.”
Ah, the heady smell of champagne and money in the air. It’s back in Australia’s technology sector. Freelancer was the first big tech sector listing in a while, but it won’t be the last. Australia’s IT startup sector is booming, and now the big end of town is back in black as well. It should be a fantastic next few years for the local industry.
Image credit: Freelancer