Monthly M&A Roundup: September

September may not have been quite as frantic with M&A as August was, but it saw some sizeable deals being made (and one notable bid being flat-out rejected).

The month’s M&A activity began with the completion of the giant Tech Data/SYNNEX merger. The distie duo announced the $7.2bn merger in March, creating a $57bn-revenue distribution giant with 22,000 employees. The new entity has been named TD SYNNEX.

On a local level, Windsor Telecom’s double acquisition of Redstar Telecom and Reefstream, ostensibly to boost its technical skills, with Windsor CEO Peter Tomlinson hailed the new faces joining the group as an “expanded group of passionate people here to support the smooth running of their businesses”.

“They’re both companies that share our commitment to ensuring customers have the exceptional experience so often lacking in our industry,” he added.

“Windsor continues to grow and expand our portfolio of communications, connectivity and IT services solutions that are easy and enjoyable for businesses of all sizes to use.”

Windsor reported revenues of £6.6m for its year ending 31 July 2020 and in that same month, it announced it had secured a “multi-million-pound” package from ThinCats – an “alternative finance provider” to SMEs – and made its first acquisition in the form of Keen IT Solutions.

With its latest acquisitions, it appears Windsor is ramping up its M&A and will be one to keep an eye on going forward.

Air IT also started the month off with a double deal of its own, in the forms of MFG UK and INFINITY IT Solutions. The MSP is fond of making double purchases, with the latest pair marking its sixth and seventh acquisitions in the past 12 months. They were scooped up for their alignment with Air’s service maturity, product set, client type, and culture, according to Air IT CEO John Whitty.

“MFG reinforces the reach within the Thames Valley and INFINITY expands our footprint in the Midlands,” Whitty told UC Today’s Tom Wright in a video interview.

“We’re trying to achieve national coverage across the UK where we can provide IT, MSP, MSSP, and business intelligence services to SMEs.

“That means that we want to have a national footprint. The way in which we intend to do that is to build regional hubs and within them service the clients locally”

The deal also takes the MSP to a £30m-revenue business, almost quadruple to what its turnover stood at prior to the private equity investment it received at the start of 2020.

Air’s ambitions are showing no signs of slowing down, with Whitty projecting that revenue figures will double within the next two years and that it has secured a further £75m for its M&A assault.

Whitty also speculated on the current trend of M&A in the channel and why owners might be looking to sell and move on.

“In general, people that are in current ownership of IT MSPs are probably of a certain age…and some of these people have been through three different recessions and are a little battle-weary and now think ‘I’ve managed to survive this, I’ve done well in growing my business, but I don’t know if I want to do it again’,” he explained.

“There is an appetite to sell, but there is definitely an appetite to buy and unfortunately we aren’t the only show in town trying to do the project that we’re undertaking”

VOSS Solutions also entered the M&A fray in September, with the purchase of data analytics and monitoring software firm LayerX Technologies. The rationale behind the deal is to enable VOSS to better support its customers undergoing digital transformation in order to align with new employee working practices.

And it wouldn’t be a monthly M&A roundup without an appearance from Babble, which expanded its presence into Scotland with the purchase of Dumfries-based 8020.

The latest acquisition marks the MSP’s seventh since the start of this year alone, and it now boasts 25,000 UCaaS users, 34,000 mobile users, and 4,000 CCaaS users across the UK.

Babble’s growth over the past nine months has been focused and relentless and I would not be at all surprised if we see it make an appearance in every M&A roundup for the rest of the year.

Finally, AIM-listed Redcentric managed to squeeze its purchase of Piksel Industry Solutions in right before the month ended. The deal is valued at around £9.5m and the rationale behind it is to expand Redecentirc’s public cloud and security capabilities.

The acquisition of York-based Piksel marks a new era for Redcentric as it looks to put the last few years firmly in the past.

The MSP had undergone a years-long investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) which concluded with an £11.4m settlement to shareholders last year. Not long after that, it even mulled selling itself but decided against it as revenues took an upswing.

Notable Vendor M&A

Meanwhile, in the vendor space, Sinch clinched two deals towards the end of the month. It bought German SaaS firm MessengerPeople for £41.2m. This was overshadowed somewhat by the mammoth $1.9bn it splashed on the email delivery platform Pathwire yesterday.

The Pathwire purchase also overshadows the more than $1bn it respectively spent on Inteliquent and MessageMedia earlier this year.

Sinch CEO Oscar Werner, said of the mammoth $1.9bn acquisition:

“Together with Pathwire, we will be able to offer a best-of-breed product set, across messaging, voice and email, that empowers businesses and developers to craft an unmatched, digital, customer experience”

Elsewhere, Zoom’s bid to acquire contact centre specialist Five9 has ended, as the latter’s shareholder’s voted to reject the deal. The video conferencing giant announced its intentions to buy Five9 back in July, but it has been a rocky road since then.

The all-stock deal was initially valued at $14.7bn, but Zoom’s share price has tumbled by 25 percent since the deal was announced, therefore lowering the value of the deal. Last week an advisory firm told Five9’s shareholders to reject the deal, which they did.

However, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan remained positive about the company’s CCaaS plans.

“While we were excited about the benefits this transaction would bring to both Zoom and Five9 stakeholders, including the long-term potential for both sets of shareholders, financial discipline is foundational to our strategy,” he stated.

“The contact centre market remains a strategic priority for Zoom, and we are confident in our ability to capture its growth potential”

It remains to be seen whether Zoom takes another crack at the CCaaS market, but I wouldn’t bet against them taking the lessons learned from this failed bid, re-grouping, and going after a similarly big fish in the near future.

September’s M&A made some of the biggest headlines of the year, but will we see the same buzz-worthy kinds of deals being made through the remainder of the year?