Best Buy Acquires mindSHIFT: 9 Questions About the MSP Deal

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1. What Was the Multiple?: Best Buy purchased mindSHIFT for $167 million. We’re poking around now to see if we can determine a multiple/valuation on the deal.

2. Distant Cousins?: Will there be any synergies between mindSHIFT and Best Buy’s Geek Squad?

3. More M&A?: Will Best Buy continue mindSHIFT’s merger and acquisition heritage, or will mindSHIFT cease to make new acquisitions now that Best Buy is holding the purse strings?

4. Earn Outs: mindSHIFT acquired numerous MSPs over the past few years. Two recent deals involved mindSHIFT purchasing Alpheon and Orbit. The big question: How does Best Buy purchasing mindSHIFT potentially impact earn outs for the the Alpheon and Orbit management teams?

5. Shopping Around?: The Bank Street Group was mindSHIFT’s “exclusive financial advisor” on the deal. Does that mean The Bank Street Group was helping mindSHIFT to shop its business around for a potential sale?

6. From Managed to Cloud Services?: mindSHIFT earlier this year began to reposition itself increasingly as a cloud services provider. How is that repositioning effort going?

7. Next Moves?: mindSHIFT CEO Paul Chisholm and his management team apparently will remain in place as part of the deal, and mindSHIFT will retain its corporate brand. So what are Chisholm’s big priorities for the next three to 12 months?

8. Industry Impact: mindSHIFT was one of the key “buyers” of MSPs in the past two to three years. Will the Best Buy-mindSHIFT deal help or hurt MSP consolidation and MSP valuations?

9. Counter Moves: Staples also owns an MSP business, called Thrive Networks. Can we expect more Big Box retailers to take a close look at the MSP market and make acqusitions?

MSPmentor will be back with more perspectives on the Best Buy-mindSHIFT deal shortly.