News
Fueling Ambitious Growth Strategy with Additional Capital Markets Investment
SysGroup PLC (‘SysGroup’), award-winning and one of the UK’s fastest growing managed IT services and cloud hosting providers, today announces that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Certus IT Limited, for an initial cash consideration of £8.0 million. The company has also raised £10.0 million from the capital markets, which in addition to its new £5.0 million banking facility from Santander, will enable greater fire power for complementary future acquisitions.
Adam Binks, CEO of SysGroup, comments: “I am delighted to be welcoming both the Certus IT team and its customers to the SysGroup family. The addition of Certus IT to the group represents a step-change regarding the scale of the business, better positioning SysGroup to penetrate our target market and drive further growth. This acquisition fits within our strategy of growing the business organically and through strategic acquisitions, and we are excited by the prospects that lie ahead.”
The acquisition of Certus IT is the latest in a string of deals made by SysGroup in recent years, further accelerating the group’s ambitious growth strategy and expanding its capabilities. With an already established presence in Financial Services, Retail, Insurance, Charity, Education and Healthcare, the deal will extend SysGroup’s reach into Professional Services and Manufacturing. The deal will also see SysGroup expand its geographical reach into South Wales, the South West and across the M4 Corridor.
Certus IT, founded in 2000, is a mid-sized end-to-end managed IT services provider based in Newport, South Wales with customers including Admiral, Confused.com and Hugh James. In 2015, Certus IT was named the Dell EMC Cloud Partner of the Year, and the acquisition will bring Dell EMC Gold Partner status to the enlarged group. This will complement SysGroup’s existing portfolio of senior vendor partnerships, including WatchGuard Platinum Partner, Microsoft Gold Datacentre Partner.
The combined power of the enlarged group will mean that customers can benefit from an enhanced portfolio of services and solutions, whilst also being able to rely on an even greater team of highly qualified staff. The deal will also enhance SysGroup’s datacentre footprint, with the addition of Certus’ 80 rack suite, located in the 250,000 sq ft Next Generation Data facility in Newport, South Wales.
Binks continues: “Through this period of growth, we remain completely committed to ensuring exceptional levels of customer service and delivering best-of-breed solutions to our enlarged customer base. This latest acquisition will amplify our capabilities, reach and scale in a way that we believe will deliver real competitive advantage to both us at SysGroup and our customers.”
Paul Brown, CEO of Certus added: “We are excited to be joining forces with SysGroup and look forward to continuing our growth and enhancing our market strength as a combined entity. Our shared culture of putting customers first and our flexibility and commitment to delivering solutions, will bring untold advantages and business opportunities to both the enlarged group and our extended customer base moving forward.”
-ENDS-
Legal: Ian Gillis, Sean Lightfoot & James Redshaw of Hill Dickinson Manchester
Financial: Phil Grindley & Rowan Porter of Grant Thornton Manchester
Corporate: Edward Mansfield & Daniel Bush of Shore Capital London
SysGroup is an award-winning Managed IT Services, Cloud Hosting, and expert IT Consultancy provider. The Group delivers solutions that enable clients to understand and benefit from industry leading technologies and advanced hosting capabilities.
SysGroup focuses on customers’ strategic and operational requirements – enabling them to free up resources, grow their core business and avoid the distractions and complexity of delivering IT services. Services include Managed IT, cloud hosting, security solutions, connectivity and strategic technical consultancy.
The Group holds a range of strategic partnerships with leading technology vendors, boasting WatchGuard Platinum status, Veeam Gold, Microsoft Gold Datacentre, HPE Silver, VMWare, Dell, Mimecast and Zerto. Accreditations include ISO 27001:2013 that protects your company information and ISO 9001:2015 for quality management, Visa Level 1 Merchant Service Provider status to underpin its PCI hosting capabilities.
SysGroup has offices in Liverpool, Coventry, London and Telford. For more information on SysGroup, visit www.sysgroup.com