Latest M&A: HP-Poly, Accenture, Lumen, Rackspace, Thoma Bravo, More
A $3.3 billion acquisition strengthens opportunities for hybrid work. Can you guess which deal?
September 20, 2022
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HP completed its $3.3 billion acquisition of Poly, the longtime provider of workplace collaboration solutions. Look for the deal to propel HP’s strategy, strengthening opportunities in hybrid work solutions, the company said.
“Hybrid work is here to stay,” said Enrique Lores, president and CEO of HP. “I don’t know any companies that have convinced employees that they need to be back in the office five days per week, every week of the month. People are going to continue to work from home and from the office. This is a tremendous opportunity for us, for our devices, for new services.”
Learn what an analyst has to say about the deal.
OpenText is acquiring British rival Micro Focus, which has a poor growth outlook and has struggled with profitability since reporting a $3 billion loss in 2020. Dogged by integration challenges from the purchase of HPE’s software business, Micro Focus’ stock slid 86% between 2018 and the end of 2021.
The Micro Focus purchase is a smart move by OpenText, one expert said.
“Micro Focus has seen its share price decline for the past two years, but its fundamentals have remained strong,” he said. Moreover, “there’s an opportunity for OpenText to turn the business around.”
Read more from Edward Gately’s reporting here.
Snowflake is buying Applica, a small company that offers an AI-based text and document automation platform. The news comes as Snowlake surprises investors with better-than-expected results.
For example, revenue for Snowflake’s fiscal second quarter topped $497 million and rose 83%, surpassing consensus estimates of $467.5 million.
One source said details about integrating Applica with Snowflake would follow in the coming months after the deal closes. But it will build on the company’s recent addition of support for unstructured data in the Snowflake Data Cloud.
Get more insight about the acquisition here.
Sungard Availability Services (Sungard AS) is selling its North American cloud and managed services (CMS) business to 11:11 Systems (“11:11”).
April marked the second time in three years the cloud infrastructure services provider filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company cited a series of factors that led to the bankruptcy round. In 2019, Sungard AS said the need was to reduce its debt by nearly $800 million.
Learn more about the company’s restructuring process.
Rackspace will not divest part of its business, concluding an exploration that included talks with at least one buyer.
The Texas-based cloud services company publicly confirmed the growing sentiment that it would remain a single company. Rackspace doesn’t plan to divest or spin off any assets.
“We did evaluate several strategic options, including an inbound interest. We decided that continuing to execute our strategy in the hypergrowth multicloud market as a standalone company is our best path forward for value creation,” one executive said.
Read more about Rackspace’s realignment here.
Although it ultimately did not come to fruition, Thoma Bravo did pursue an acquisition of Darktrace, which could have taken the company private after going public in spring 2021.
Darktrace started trading publicly with its initial public offering (IPO) in April 2021. It’s an artificial intelligence (AI) company that specializes in cyber defense. Its portfolio is broad, and includes cloud security, threat visualization, and network detection and response (NDR).
Darktrace sells through various partner types, including VARs, MSSPs, small consulting organizations and other technology partners.
Learn more about the rumored acquisition here.
Digital Ocean has acquired Cloudways, a managed cloud hosting and software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider for SMBs. For small to medium-sized businesses, this deal will simplify workflows and make it easier to build and scale their digital businesses.
DigitalOcean — the cloud for developers, startups and SMBs — and Cloudways have been close partners since 2014. Cloudways currently relies on DigitalOcean infrastructure to power approximately 50% of its customers.
Read more here about how this deal impacts the SMB market.
Private equity-backed Upstack just added to its list of acquisitions high-powered agency ChaseTek.
The deal represents the latest in a series of 20-plus purchases Upstack has made using an equity investment from Berkshire Partners and financing from two other groups.
“ChaseTek has grown into a reputable and respected technology infrastructure advisory firm by filling a void in the market for expert advice paired with managed services,” said Upstack founder and CEO Christopher Trapp.
Delve into the company’s background with James Anderson’s reporting.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gave its blessing for the divestiture of Lumen incumbent local exchange carrier operations to Apollo-run Brightspeed.
The authorization marks the final regulatory approval needed for the sale, which Brightspeed expects will close in the fourth quarter. Lumen announced last year that it was selling ILEC assets in 20 states to Apollo Global Management. Apollo stated its intention of running those assets under an LLC named Connect Holding and building out fiber in underserved areas. Connect Holding has since rebranded as Brightspeed.
Brightspeed will target historically underdeveloped areas for fiber investment. That initiative corresponds with the massive investment the federal government is making in broadband with the Infrastructure Act.
DNSFilter has acquired Guardian, a firewall and VPN technology platform. The acquisition allows DNSFilter to provide a secure web gateway (SWG) that protects user information and secures organizations against web-based threats.
DNSFilter also enters the SWG category of secure access service edge (SASE), bringing an expanded security solution to a “stagnant” market, the company’s CEO and co-founder Ken Carnesi said.
“This opens up new markets for DNSFilter to provide a broader solution that many enterprises are looking to converge on in the coming years,” he said.
Will Strafach is Guardian’s founder and CEO.
“We are thrilled to join DNSFilter, the category leader in DNS layer security and a like-minded team that shares our beliefs on privacy and delivering quality software to protect devices,” he said. “Guardian and DNSFilter place a high priority on in-house security research to best protect our customers and remain steadfast in our mission to allow users to take back control of the personal data and information they share while using any device. Guardian solutions are a perfect complement to DNSFilter as the company broadens its platform offerings.”
This reporting occurred during Black Hat USA. Beyond DNSFilter, our editor covered news and research from NetWitness, BlackBerry, CrowdStrike and more. You can find that coverage here.
ZeroFox, an external cybersecurity provider, is now a publicly traded company with the closing of its merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) L&F Acquisition Corp.
Partners will benefit from ZeroFox becoming a publicly traded company, ZeroFox said. They will be able to deliver to their customers the first end-to-end external cybersecurity offering, including solutions to expose and disrupt cyberattacks, mitigate the risk of breaches, manage breach response and required notifications, and disrupt future threats.
Discover how partners play a big role in ZeroFox’s growth here.
Flashpoint has acquired Echosec Systems, a provider of open-source intelligence (OSINT) and publicly available information (PAI) for national security, public safety and enterprise customers.
The Echosec Systems acquisition will bring open-source, social media and geospatial intelligence to Flashpoint. That will further differentiate Flashpoint’s offerings for national security, public safety and commercial security teams.
Read more about Echosec Systems’ focus.
Netskope partners will gain a competitive advantage in secure access service edge (SASE) through the company’s acquisition of Infiot.
That’s according to Melissa Nacerino, Netskope’s vice president of global channels and alliances marketing. Infiot enables secure, reliable access with zero trust security, network and application optimization, and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven operations.
Netskope isn’t saying how much it’s paying for Infiot.
However, partners can offer a solution that applies uniform security and quality of experience (QoE) policies to a wide range of hybrid work needs, the company said.
Learn more about how Netskope is delivering on the promise of SASE.
Accenture has acquired Tenbu, a cloud data firm that provides solutions for intelligent decision making and planning. It does so through areas such as analytics, big data and machine learning (ML).
The acquisition expands Accenture’s Cloud First capabilities through Latin America and globally.
Tenbu is the 11th acquisition with headquarters in Latin America that Accenture has made in the past five years. That includes Organize Cloud Labs in Brazil, as well as Wolox and Ergo in Argentina, among others.
The Tenbu acquisition will help Accenture and its partners maintain their leadership position, Accenture officials said. Read more about that here.
Cloud marketplace provider Pax8 is buying Umbrellar, a Microsoft cloud solutions provider. Umbrellar offers cloud managed services, migration, advisory services and cloud procurement for more than 1,000 New Zealand businesses.
The acquisition enables Pax8 to expand to New Zealand. This empowers its fast-growing partner base to accelerate digital transformation locally and globally.
Learn more here about Umbrellar’s mission to deliver the “technology for tomorrow’s world” to its partners.
Infinigate Group, the pan-European value-added distributor (VAD) of cybersecurity solutions, has acquired cloud solution provider (CSP) Vuzion. It creates the first VAD combining cybersecurity and cloud services, Infinigate officials said. This secure cloud value proposition will enable Infinigate and Vuzion resellers and partners to support the SMB sector on the journey to the cloud – enabling them to maximize the value of their cloud investments and accelerate growth.
“Adding Vuzion’s Microsoft cloud expertise and team to Infinigate is an excellent example of the dedication of both Infinigate and Vuzion to anticipating and meeting the needs of their partners through strategic investment,” said Wim Delbeke, regional business leader Microsoft EMEA. “Security is a key priority for Microsoft and we look forward to helping them pursue more opportunities to achieve their strategic objectives and enabling more resellers to keep their customers secure.”
KKR, the global investment firm, wrapped its acquisition of Barracuda Networks, the security giant, from Thoma Bravo, the software investment firm. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Barracuda is a cloud-first provider of cybersecurity solutions for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). More than 200,000 customers worldwide count on Barracuda to protect their email, networks, applications and data.
“We’re ready to deliver on our next phase of growth with KKR and remain dedicated to investing in our team and product portfolio to provide innovative cybersecurity solutions for our customers and partners,” said Hatem Naguib, CEO of Barracuda. “We’re grateful to Thoma Bravo for their valuable strategic and operational support over the last four years.”
Global provider of managed network solutions, Expereo, has acquired Breeze Networks, a managed service provider of SD-WAN/SASE technologies. The acquisition fuels Expereo’s growth trajectory, further enhancing its SD-WAN/SASE practice, building on its expanding range of services to manage SD-WAN solutions at scale to partners and multinational enterprise customers across the globe, the company said.
Breeze Networks is a managed service provider of cloud-based (SD-WAN) network connectivity and security solutions for enterprises and government agencies. The rapid adoption of cloud-based applications and SD-WAN technologies puts internet-based WANs at the center of multinational companies’ business models.
“This acquisition comes at an exciting time, as we expand our SD-WAN services to address the growing need for agile, cost-effective cloud access and global network solutions in the market.
Global provider of managed network solutions, Expereo, has acquired Breeze Networks, a managed service provider of SD-WAN/SASE technologies. The acquisition fuels Expereo’s growth trajectory, further enhancing its SD-WAN/SASE practice, building on its expanding range of services to manage SD-WAN solutions at scale to partners and multinational enterprise customers across the globe, the company said.
Breeze Networks is a managed service provider of cloud-based (SD-WAN) network connectivity and security solutions for enterprises and government agencies. The rapid adoption of cloud-based applications and SD-WAN technologies puts internet-based WANs at the center of multinational companies’ business models.
“This acquisition comes at an exciting time, as we expand our SD-WAN services to address the growing need for agile, cost-effective cloud access and global network solutions in the market.
As our latest M&A edition shows, we observed some of the same trends in August as we did in July. It appears there’s no hitting the brakes when it comes to cybersecurity mergers and acquisitions in particular.
For example, global investment firm KKR has acquired a prominent cybersecurity company with more than 200,000 customers worldwide. It purchased the company from another familiar face in the investment world, Thoma Bravo. This raises another point. Investment firms are as much a part the channel as other organizations.
We selected 18 companies that participated in M&A in August. Some deals got attention for their size, such as HP closing its Poly acquisition. We paid attention to others for their geographic reach. This included Pax8‘s acquisition of Umbrellar, which allows the cloud marketplace provider to expand into New Zealand.
Lastly, we focused on one acquisition across the pond: OpenText is acquiring its British rival, Micro Focus. Unfortunately, Micro Focus is dogged by a number of financial challenges. The bright side is that OpenText may be able to turn things around.
See our slideshow above for all of the latest channel-impacting M&A. Then, if you didn’t catch our previous M&A gallery, you can find it here.
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