Snapped up! 10 massive M&A deals in Australia in 2015

1. Vocus buys Amcom

It is yet to be seen how much focus the combined company will give its IT integration unit, which came from Amcom’s $15 million-dollar buyout of L7 Solutions several years ago. As reported by CRN, revenue in that business had fallen.

Read more: Vocus to create national telco with Amcom buyout

2. M2 buys Vocus

M2 itself has been on a roll, with profit after tax increasing by 53 percent and revenue exceeding $1 billion in the 2015 financial year.

Read more: M2 Group and Vocus to merge

3. TPG buys iiNet

TPG eventually won the day and with it gained a booming ISP business that saw an 11 percent increase in revenue for the 2015 financial year. The two companies have approximately 1.7 million customers between them, not to mention a handy hardware income stream - iiNet sold more than $50 million in hardware during its 2015 financial year.

Read more: iiNet, TPG mega-merger wins shareholder approval

4. CSC announces bid for UXC

Both companies have significant ServiceNow practises, not to mention more than 5,000 local staff between them. Security and health are two other strengths for both businesses.

The deal is scheduled to be completed by February 2016 if all goes to plan.

Read more: How CSC-UXC could create a $1.4bn Aussie channel giant

5. Konica Minolta buys Microsoft and SAP resellers

Konia Minolta’s director of strategic business expansion, Shane Blandford, told CRN at the time that with people printing less, the “basis of our business is now challenged.” Unlike other print giants, the vendor hadn’t gone down the road of becoming a managed services provider for infrastructure helpdesk and desktop rollouts. He said the goal was to acquire OpenText, SAP and SharePoint expertise instead.

Stonebridge Systems listed the likes of NBN Co, Fairfax Media, Australia Post and Macquarie Group as customers.

Read more: Konica Minolta acquires duo of Microsoft and SAP resellers

6. Investor buys MyMac

MyMac was 15 years old at the time and regarded by some as one of the largest privately owned Apple premium resellers locally, with a turnover of $14 million. MyMac had stores in Sydney and Melbourne. The new owner told CRN that the education market was one of the investor’s priorities.

Read more: Buyout for one of Australia's biggest Apple resellers

7. Deloitte buys Dataweave and Cloud Solutions Group

Dataweave’s chief executive, Norm Weaver, said the new owner would help drive larger deals. “If you’re a small company of 40-50 people, it’s just difficult to do very large deals or large projects from a risk management perspective and getting the customer convinced to sign up from a risk management perspective."

Deloitte's channel ambitions continued in November, when it acquired Melbourne-based Cloud Solutions Group, gaining the IT providers skillsets with vendors Amazon, NextDC, Nimble Storage, VMware, EMC, Citrix, IBM and Hewlett-Packard.

Read more: http://www.crn.com.au/News/411597,deloitte-buys-melbournes-cloud-solutions-group.aspx#ixzz3uH0DY682 Read more: Deloitte takes over $11m Oracle partner Dataweave

8. Digital Pacific buys Crucial

Crucial launched a Google Apps for Work managed service this year, including migration and support. Chief executive David Murray argued that while the applications were user friendly, the setup and maintenance often was not.

Meanwhile, new owner Digital Pacific started in 2000 and provides domain names and hosting services.

Read more: Crucial sold for 'double-digit millions', changes CEO

9. BigAir buys Applaud IT

Applaud has appeared in the CRN Fast50 twice and is a Microsoft Gold Solution Advisor in management and virtualisation, as well as working with HP, Shoretel and Dell among others. It has a string of clients involved in property, including Raine & Horne, Pan Pacific Hotel Group and Servcorp.

Read more: http://www.crn.com.au/Gallery/407294,the-biggest-ma-deals-in-the-australian-channel-this-year-so-far.aspx/7" target="_blank">BigAir buys Applaud for $1.2 million

10. Melbourne IT buys Uberglobal

Expect to hear more from Melbourne IT in the enterprise space. While it’s known for its small business domains and hosting, it has also been building managed services on AWS.

Read more: Melbourne IT acquires Telstra, ANZ app developer for $21.7m