ATR Technology Rentals changed its name to iVOLVE Procurement & Rental Partner during February 2004, after a successful management buy-out from the AST Group. As the principal investor, Kagiso Trust Investments holds a 50.4% effective economic interest in iVOLVE.

iVOLVE bought the assets of Cape Town-based Icon Capital, merged its operations and appointed its staff and the Managing Director, Pieter van Oudtshoorn, as Regional Manager. The company will focus on providing information technology based finance solutions, value added procurement and asset management services and short term rentals to medium-to-large private enterprises (50 plus user base), medium corporate companies, Government and Parastatels.

Says iVOLVE Managing Director, Johan Basson: "We have decided to open iVOLVE Cape as it became increasingly difficult to service our clients from our offices in Gauteng. Most of our clients have regional offices and prefer local support and service. Our aim is to service new and existing customers in the Western and Eastern Cape from our Cape Town based office."

Rental and of ICT equipment is becoming increasingly popular in South Africa, due to the reduced total cost of ownership, tax benefits, upgrade benefits, as well as asset tracking and management services.

Pieter van Oudtshoorn has extensive knowledge and experience in the asset based finance field, and has amongst others, been involved in a number of asset based finance and rental company start-ups, over the past 15 years.

"We are in the process of investigating the possibility of also opening a regional office in Durban," concludes Basson.