Managed Services Acquisition: All Covered Buys The I.T. Pros

It’s official: All Covered, a nationwide managed services provider, has acquired The I.T. Pros of San Diego, Calif. Both MSPs are members of our 2010 MSPmentor 100 list. Here’s some perspective on the deal from Doug Ford, founder of The I.T. Pros.

First, the nuts and bolts: All Covered has roughly 300 employees and roughly 21 locations across the United States. In contrast, The I.T. Pros has roughly 21 employees, 13 of which were billable engineering resources. The deal has a bit of administration and sales overlap, so it sounds like most — but not all — of The I.T. Pros employees are moving over to All Covered.

Also of note: All Covered has made roughly 13 acquisitions in the past two years, and this is among the largest of those deals. However, a spokesperson for All Covered declines to disclose financial terms for The I.T. Pros buyout.

“All Covered has been a competitor I’ve always admired,” said Doug Ford, founder of The I.T. Pros. “My original strategy heading into 2010 was to grow nati0nally. But getting funds from banks became a bit more challenging, so the national push seemed like it would have to wait.”

That change when All Covered approached The I.T. Pros in late 2009 to discuss a potential buyout. “The deal is now official and the transition is going very well,” said Ford, who joins All Covered as director of consulting services.

Before the buyout, The I.T. Pros offered customers three levels of service: Managed, professional and cloud. All three of those services will remain in place under All Covered’s ownership, Ford said. And just like All Covered, The I.T. Pros typically targets businesses with 100 or fewer seats.

This is the latest in a growing list of MSP-oriented buyouts. I’ll try to piece together a bigger-picture look at the buyouts in the next few days.

Sign up for MSPmentor’s weekly Enewsletter, Webcasts and Resource Center. And follow us via RSS; Facebook; Identi.ca; and Twitter. Plus, check out more MSP voices at www.MSPtweet.com.