A year of deals! 26 Australian reseller mergers in 2016

January: Summit Group acquires PCRange customers

The Summit Group acquired the assets and customers of SIPTalk and OnPBX, the two VoIP communications subsidiaries once owned by the now-defunct PCRange.

Melbourne-based Summit Group founder and chief executive Greg Lipschitz said the acquisitions were initiated after reading about PCRange’s voluntary liquidation on CRN. “We purchased stock (IP telephones) and the customer base as an ongoing concern for an undisclosed sum,” Lipschitz told CRN.

Lipschitz added that in the past, Summit Group had worked with PCRange by purchasing "some Billion hardware products over the years" but that was not the reason why they decided to buy its assets. “Summit provides internet and data, voice, data centre and cloud services. The SIPTalk and OnPBX brands aligns with our SIP services, FlexPBX hosted and PBX platform.

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February: Bulletproof acquires Cloud House

ASX-listed hosting and cloud provider Bulletproof acquired Amazon Web Services partner Cloud House for up to NZ$4.2 million (approximately $3.8 million).

Cloud House was a New Zealand company with offices in Wellington and Auckland. It provides consulting, billing and managed services for enterprise customers migrating to AWS public cloud.

Bulletproof chief executive Anthony Woodward said: “We have been working with the outstanding team at Cloud House on a number of partnered opportunities for some time and we have always been impressed with the innovative customer-focused capabilities of the Cloud House team."

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February: Vintek acquires Intervolve

Adelaide-based Vintek Group acquired Intervolve, a company that operates from within seven data centre locations across Australia, for an undisclosed sum.

Vintek Group director Paul Vinton said Intervolve was acquired because of its market presence in capital cities and potential for growth.

“Companies go to great lengths to ensure that their data remains in Australia. Any company who deals with Vintek or Intervolve will always know that their data is stored on Australian soil with the best security measures the market has to offer,” he said.

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February: PS&C Group acquires Certitude

Another ASX-listed tech company, PS&C Group, acquired Certitude, an IT governance and risk services company, for $2.1 million.

Based in Melbourne and with a presence in Sydney, Certitude boasted a stellar client line-up including BHP Billiton, Dimension Data Australia, Ernst & Young, Fair Work Australia and NBN Co, according to its website.

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March: MOQdigital acquires Tetran and Skoolbag

MOQdigital – the company born out of Breeze and Technology Effect – snapped up managed services provider Tetran, along with Skoolbag, a provider of software-as-a-service for education and childcare.

The two unrelated deals by MOQ, the publicly listed parent of MOQdigital, were worth a total of $12 million, with a $9 million consideration for Tetran and $3 million for Skoolbag.

Tetran brought 90 employees from offices in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Sri Lanka, with customers across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, London and New York. It turned over $7.5 million in 2015, after growing revenue 20 percent, with earnings of $1.1 million.

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March: Kogan acquires Dick Smith assets

Online retailer Kogan acquired selected intellectual property from failed retailer Dick Smith for an undisclosed sum.

The deal included Dick Smith brand and trademarks, the online business in Australia and New Zealand, customer and loyalty databases, websites and domain names.

Kogan founder Ruslan Kogan said: “Dick Smith is an iconic Australian brand and we’re thrilled to be able to keep it alive, as well as Aussie owned and run. We will invest in building and nurturing the Dick Smith community, and honour the great legacy of this Australian business."

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March: Melbourne IT acquires Infoready

Melbourne IT acquired IBM partner and data consultancy firm Infoready for $15.4 million.

Infoready continued to operate under its own name as the data and analytics arm of Melbourne IT.

Melbourne IT executive general manager Peter Wright said: "The strong data and analytics capabilities of InfoReady presents a compelling strategic fit with our enterprise strategy. It perfectly complements our cloud, mobile, security and applications capabilities to deliver a comprehensive and compelling value proposition to the market. We are delighted to announce this acquisition, and making this significant data analytics capability available to our customers.”

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March: Secure Logic acquires Computer Room Solutions

Secure Logic acquired Computer Room Solutions, with Secure Logic Santosh Devaraj claiming the combined entity has been independent valued at $140 million.

Secure Logic is based in Sydney and offers cyber security services to clients such as Alibaba, Westpac, Optus, Fujitsu and the federal government, according to its website. Last year, it won a $990,000 contract to host the NSW Electoral Commission’s iVote system until 2020. It employs 150 people across Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, China and Indonesia.

CRS, which is also based in Sydney, offers racks, cabinets, containment solutions, data centre security caging, control systems and PDUs.

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April: Zettagrid acquires Conexim

Infrastructure-as-a-service provider Zettagrid acquired fellow cloud company Conexim.

Zettagrid chief executive Nathan Harman said the main driver behind the acquisition was to scale out the business quickly and expand its product portfolio. Conexim sells private, public and hybrid cloud solutions based on VMware and Xen virtualisation. Zettagrid’s cloud is also based on VMware.

“We’ll take their infrastructure and incorporate it into our own. One reason we agreed to the deal by in large was that their infrastructure is identical or very similar to ours, which was an unexpected bonus,” said Harman.

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May: Harvey Norman acquires Mac1

Harvey Norman entered into a deal to acquire Mac1, the independent Apple service provider formerly owned by Dick Smith.

Dick Smith bought Mac1 in September 2014 for $1. It was understood that hiring founder Kenneth Hogg to drive Dick Smith’s education business was central to the deal. Nine months later, Dick Smith revealed its plans to bring Mac1 in as dedicated service kiosks inside its existing stores.

When Dick Smith sank into administration in January, McGrathNicol administrator Joe Hayes told creditors it would be best if Mac1 was sold off as a separate company to see a better credit return. However, if Dick Smith was wound up, its creditors would also become creditors of Mac1.

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May: Citadel acquires Kapish

Canberra IT provider Citadel entered into a binding agreement to acquire Hewlett Packard Enterprise gold partner Kapish for $17.5 million.

Melbourne-headquarted Kapish was a software and services company, one of only two Australian gold business partners for HPE TRIM records manager suite of document and records management solutions, along with Optus.

Citadel chairman Kevin McCann expected the acquisition to add $4 million of EBITDA to the company's 2017 financial year. "Going forward, Citadel will continue to explore acquisitions where appropriate to support its known organic growth opportunities."

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June: Servers Australia acquires data centre assets

Servers Australia acquired thousands of customers and hundreds of racks in an bid to become the ''largest dedicated hosting provider in Australia".

The hosting provider, which is headquartered on the NSW Central Coast, has purchased the customers, contracts and assets – including computing infrastructure and two data centre locations – from related companies Dedicated Servers, Indigo and Syncom. The deal was valued "in the millions".

It is part of a move by Servers Australia to become the country's top dedicated hosting provider. The company, which was founded in 2006, recently sold its 4,000 shared web hosting customers to to VentraIP so it could focus squarely on dedicated infrastructure.

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June: HostGenius acquires Speedhost.com.au

Sydney-based web hosting minnow HostGenius acquired its smaller rival Speedhost.com.au in a friendly buyout that its new owner valued at “less than six figures”.

HostGenius managing director Peter Moriarty said that he struck the deal to purchase the web hosting company from a friend seeking to exit the business.

Sister company itGenius made two further acquisiton in the year: buying assets and customers from Chromeworx in October; then the Google practice of Cloud Logic in December.

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June: Blue Central acquires VCPro

Sydney and Melbourne solutions provider Blue Central acquired Sydney managed services provider VCPro.

As part of the transaction, VCPro director Peter Ikladios was appointed managing director of Blue Central, replacing previous managing director George Kazangi.

Ikladios had been director of VCPro for the past seven years. He brought 20 years of experience in the IT industry to Blue Central, including stints with Defence Force Recruiting, KAZ Group and Ernst and Young.

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July: BigAir Group acquires CyberHound

BigAir Group has acquired managed security services provider CyberHound for up to $7 million.

The acquisition payment consisted of $4 million cash and up to $3 million in BigAir shares. CyberHound was expected to generate up to $6 million in revenue in the 2017 financial year.

Brisbane's CyberHound, formerly known as Netbox Blue, was founded in 1999. The company provides cybersecurity services to 350 schools across Australia, particularly to prevent cyberbullying, and services 550 SMBs.

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August: Investment vehicle acquires Southern Cross

A consortium led by John Hanna, the man who helped build the managed services arm at $150 million IT provider Interactive, has acquired a majority stake in Southern Cross Computer Systems.

Hanna became managing director of Southern Cross, with Matt McGuire named as chief operating officer.

McGuire's experience has included roles at IBM, Ajilon, AAPT and CSC. Before joining Interactive in October 2010, Hanna was at IBM.

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September: Insight acquires Ignia

Insight Enterprises acquired Perth-based Ignia in another major merger within the Microsoft channel.

Ignia had been a high-performing part of the Microsoft channel, notching up big wins with the likes of Cash Converters and WA Police, as well as appearing in the last two CRN Fast50 awards. The company was No.22 in the 2015 CRN Fast50, having grown revenue 60 percent to hit $12.2 million.

At last year's Microsoft Australia Partner Awards, Ignia also won an Excellence in Industry and Platform Innovation award, as well as the Excellence in Mobility and Devices honour.

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September: JB Hi-Fi acquires The Good Guys

After months of speculation, JB Hi-Fi officially announced it will acquire whitegoods retailer The Good Guys for $870 million.

The deal was funded by a combination of a $394 million entitlement offer and $500 million from existing debt facilities.

JB Hi-Fi got a huge surge to its budding whitegoods business with the addition of 101 Good Guys stores in Australia, bringing its total number of locations to 295. The companies expect to net between $15 million and $20 million in net synergies per year.

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September: The IT Consultancy Group acquires Genisyst

Two Sydney IT companies merged in September, with The IT Consultancy Group set to acquire network specialist Genisyst.

Based in Hornsby in North Sydney, Genisyst is a multi-carrier and diverse-path WAN, internet and network specialist provider. ITConsult, on the other hand, is a managed service provider specialising in infrastructure and data centre consulting.

The two companies began formally working together two-and-a-half years ago, with Genisyst managing WAN connections for ITConsult's customers.

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October: Virage IT merges with PowerNet

Two Melbourne technology providers, Virage IT and PowerNet IT Solutions, merged to form a combined managed services and professional services company with 37 years of industry experience.

Founded in 1994, PowerNet provides professional services to a wide range of industries including retail, finance and real estate. Virage IT, on the other hand, provides managed services mostly to education customers, along with digital agencies and financial institutions. The managed services provider was founded in 2001, but began operating as Virage IT in 2012 after the merger of two MSPs, Pro Integrations and Trinity Digital.

The new company has a headcount of 65, combining PowerNet's 50 staff with Virage IT's 15. The two firms will continue to cover a wide client base and extend their respective services to each other's customers.

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October: Enosys merges with Hacking Group

East coast security provider Enosys merged with specialist penetration testing organisation The Hacking Group.

Much like Enosys, The Hacking Group provided services to customers in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. The company specialises in penetration testing for enterprise customers, including internal and external testing, web application testing, wireless testing and forensic testing.

Enosys sales director Joseph Mesiti said the deal would allow the company to fill a gap in the company's offering by providing of penetration testing services as well as expanding its services to existing customers.

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October: Previous owner acquires MyMac

Independent Apple retailer MyMac was sold back to its original owner after a falling out between the directors.

MyMac was acquired by holding company Broad Investments for $200,000 in cash, $145,000 in further cash instalments plus 574 million shares in March 2015.

MyMac director Steve Bardel paid $150,000 to buy back the business. His shares were returned to Broad and cancelled, though the extra $145,000 was never paid. Problems with the partnership surfaced in November last year when Bardel took Broad's other directors to court.

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October: Asta acquires Crunch IT

Melbourne-based Crunch IT was acquired by another Melbourne managed services provider Asta, bringing Apple and Microsoft enterprise services under the same roof.

After six months in the making, Asta says the acquisition made the combined company "one of the only cross-platform managed IT service providers in the country".

Founded in 2005, Crunch IT specialises in Apple enterprise support services and integration in Microsoft business environments. The company also offers strategic IT planning services, risk management and networking services. Crunch IT has a presence in Sydney and Melbourne.

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November: RDP IT merges with BICG Australia

Sydney managed services provider RDP IT merged with CRM and data analytics firm BICG Australia in an effort to business intelligence solutions across Australia, in addition to development, cloud, recruitment and managed services.

RDP IT chief executive Robert Delli Priscoli, who led the combined company after the merger, said the combined business’ would bring 45 people into the group, and access to more than 300 engineers across Australia and New Zealand.

The CEO said more back office staff would be hired as well as new business intelligence specialists to complement the experience BICG brings in data analytics, business intelligence, Sharepoint and cloud services.

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December: Generation-e acquires DRM Audio Visual

Microsoft gold partner and unified communications specialist Generation-e acquired Melbourne-based DRM Audio Visual for an undisclosed figure that would "close to double" Generation-e's revenue.

Biagio La Rosa, Generation-e's managing director, told CRN the acquisition was part of his company's strategy to own the meetings and collaboration experience. "We are building a new entity able to combine legacy AV with the modern world of Microsoft cloud," he said. "If we use unified communications we can escalate phone to video and sharing sessions."

In December 2015, Generation-e acquired Microsoft partner Paradyne in order to create a "powerhouse in unified communications, collaboration and productivity technology".

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December: Klugo merges with Outserve

Two NetSuite partners – Victoria-based software provider Klugo and Adelaide-based managed services provider Outserve – merged after two years of collaboration.

Now called Klugo Group, the new company was established following Klugo's acquisition of Outserve and the strategic partnership between the two, which had worked together to provide NetSuite implementation and support services. Klugo focused on the vendor's business and software development while Outserve would provide implementation, consulting, support and outsourced accounting services.

Klugo chief executive Annaliese Kloe said: "After two years of working successfully with Outserve, the Klugo board decided that merging with Outserve was most effective way to accelerate our growth plans."

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