Telecommunications giant Singtel’s subsidiary NCS group has announced the acquisition of Australia’s Arq Group for $290 Million. The digital services firm will be NCS group’s latest acquisition in 15 months after Dialog Group & Google Cloud consultancy Riley in their quest to kickstart its NCS NEXT digital innovation and service arm in Australia.  

“This latest acquisition completes a jigsaw of strategic investments in Australia, ramping up our presence in a market that is critical to our regional expansion. Combined with Dialog’s core IT capabilities and extensive reach across 8 Australian cities, ARQ brings onboard the right digital competencies that help create a highly compelling end-to-end digital transformation value proposition,” NCS Group chief executive Ng Kuo Pin said.  

Post the acquisition, Arq Group is expected to bring in an additional 560 staff to NCS and boost its headcount to 1,900 across Australia.

Arq Group, formerly known as Melbourne IT, adopted the new name in 2018 after a restructuring. In 2020, its enterprise business was sold to a consortium that included Sydney-based investment firm Quadrant Private Equity for $35 million, along with the Arq Group name.

Arq Group chief executive Tristan Sternson said, “Joining the NCS family is a tremendous opportunity to continue growing the business as it now allows us to go international and serve regional clients besides capturing more domestic market share by leveraging synergies within NCS.”

She also added that they are well primed for expansion, having grown their government footprint to over a third of their business, acquiring many new customers and hiring 300 new talents on board.  The firm will continue to optimise NCS’ world-class IT and digital capabilities to keep building innovative solutions for the clients

The acquisition is subject to the receipt of the relevant regulatory approvals and is expected to complete by May 2022.