Centre Group has continued to slim down its operations by divesting itself of most of the assets in its e-commerce “incubator”.

In January, Centre closed several overseas offices, ceased writing credit enhancement business and made substantial redundancies.

The company announced plans to refocus on its core business and has recently narrowed this down to finite risk.

In a widely anticipated development, Centre has now confirmed that it will be re-letting space in the Zurich building formerly occupied by the eVenture Centre (eVC).

Start-up companies, Axiom Services, Invesdex, Kitcomm and ISI publishing have either left or are in the process of leaving the office where they were “incubated” leaving only QuoVadis, who have reached a deal with Centre to stay in the Zurich building. Other e-VentureCentre investments, including service firms Ignition and Global e-Biz, had previously departed the incubator.

Relocation would have been difficult for QuoVadis because its SecureCentre is located there. This state-of-the-art hosting facility allows a fire-proof and bomb proof secure zone for IT systems and is an essential part of the QuoVadis business.

Once described as an example of Centre's “thinking outside the box” the eVC appears to have been judged too far outside.

How much seed money Centre put into each e-commerce business was never disclosed, but Ms Gail Gorman, former chief executive at the eVC, described the investment in a previous interview with Bermudian Business as “significant”.

Ms Gorman has now left the company and Centre executive George Hutchings is overseeing the eVC transition but has taken “a mutual decision” to depart in early June. Mr. Hutchings continued to claim yesterday that it was too early to judge whether the eVC had been an investment failure for Centre, saying: “Venture capital investments take a number of years to yield returns”.

For QuoVadis, the restructuring at Centre appears to have presented an opportunity not only to gain independence but to acquire a majority interest in what remains of the eVC.

With the help of a new investor, Roman Brunner, QuoVadis has accomplished a share buy-back, removing Centre as a majority shareholder.

It has also acquired a majority of shares in the eVC company which includes key technology licences and the SecureCentre.

It has not acquired an interest in any of the other eVC start-up companies, however, and does not intend to pursue a role as an e-commerce incubator. The eVC is to be renamed as part of the QuoVadis group.

Mr. Hutchings said that Centre's relationship with the other eVC companies should not change one iota due to the QuoVadis deal, adding: “Everything we're doing is to ensure the best possible chance of succeeding.”

He declined to reveal financial details of the deal but said: “The total transaction was a fair deal for Centre.”

He said that although there was no recourse for Centre to recoup its investment in the start-ups, Centre continues to hold equity in the start-up companies because it expects a return in the future.

A typical scenario might be that the companies could list on a stock exchange in the future and at that stage Centre would exit and recoup its original investment and potentially make a profit.

Mr. Brunner, a Swiss national and Bermuda resident, joins Tony Nagel and Stephen Davidson as management of the newly enlarged QuoVadis.

Mr. Brunner has a 20-year association with the Island, as well as top expertise working in the technology services sector in both North America and Europe. He said: “With Bermuda's concentration in the insurance sector, I am very excited for QuoVadis' growth prospects. Computer security is a risk management decision, and the insurance industry is the risk taker of last resort... We are convinced that the enlarged and now independent QuoVadis will be a major force in Bermuda's ability to compete in the international business arena.”