Sports internet developer and content provider Sportal Australia has secured its medium-term future thanks to a funding boost from its South African partner.

South African Investments Limited (SAIL) has increased its stake in Sportal Australia to take a controlling interest following an agreement with Sportal Limited, the UK based Company. SAIL has agreed to inject further funding into the company to enable the company to continue building the Sportal brand in Australia, and to allow more time to develop local strategic partnerships.

SAIL, a publicly-listed sports rights holder, acquired 15 per cent of Sportal Australia last August.

Cobus Kotze, a Director of SAIL said that the continued support of Sportal Australia is in line with SAIL’s strategy to expand its operations internationally.

‘We have been extremely impressed with the management of Sportal Australia and are pleased with the progress of the company.’

Sportal Australia Chief Executive Officer, Chris Hume, said that the move ensures the viability of the Australian office irrespective of discussions currently taking place at Sportal Limited in London.

‘We are keenly awaiting the outcome of those negotiations and we are hopeful of a positive outcome, based on Sportal’s tremendous progress in Europe over the past 18 months’.

‘Naturally, we have worked closely with our London head office since we started Sportal Australia, and they have been an invaluable source of content, applications and knowledge but it became obvious when we started here that we would have to operate independently.’

‘Since starting in Australia in January of last year we have established our own content management and publishing system, a local commercial team and a team of editors, producers and writers across Australia who produce local content’ Mr Hume said.

‘We are managing our costs carefully and our revenue remains on target, as we move toward profit.’

With more than 3.6 million page impressions* and 210,000 unique users* across its network in April alone, Sportal is Australia’s leading provider of online sports content and boasts long-term contracts as the Internet partner of SBS TV Sport, the West Coast Eagles, the Brisbane Broncos, the PGA of Australia, the Victorian and Tasmanian cricket associations, the Victorian Soccer Federation and the New South Wales Institute of Sport.

Sportal’s own branded site (www.sportal.com.au) is the number one multi-sports site in Australia. Sportal is also a major provider of sports content to other Internet sites and portals and its partners include Yahoo!, the Excite@Home network and Austar Communications.

* Source: IMR/Red Sherrif

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Ashley Browne
Managing Editor
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