Private equity, Mergers and Acquisitions, Mergers and Acquisitions, MSP, Content

Private Equity Funds MSP Merger: Connect Managed Services, G3 Comms Unite

Connect Managed Services and G3 Comms are merging to form an MSP with roughly $69 million in annual revenue (£55 million). Apiary Capital, a private equity firm that acquired G3 in March 2019, is backing the deal.

The combined London-based MSP will focus on Customer Experience (CX) and Unified Communications (UC). Clientele includes BP, Diageo, Johnson & Johnson, Morningstar andVolkswagen. Key partners include Amazon Web Services, Avaya, Cisco Systems, Genesys and Microsoft.

On the management front, the executive leadership team includes:

  • Connect's Alex Tupman as CEO
  • Connect's Martin Cross as CTO
  • G3's James Arnold-Roberts as group managing director
  • G3's Adam Young as COO

Connect Managed Services and G3 Comms Merge: Executive Perspectives

Alex Tupman
Alex Tupman

Commenting on the deal, Tupman said:

"Our objective is to create a highly scalable and focussed business that can support the needs of a far greater and more diverse customer base, located within both the UK and abroad. The merger of G3 and Connect brings together two businesses with highly complementary capabilities which will enable our combined clients to derive significant benefits from the newly acquired skills provided by the enlarged team, together with the ability to offer an extended portfolio of specialist and proven products and services."

Arnold-Roberts added:

"We are really excited to be joining forces with Connect. The combination of the two businesses will bring even greater benefit to our existing customers while our emerging scale will allow us to reach new prospects both here in the UK and around the world. When we looked at Connect's capabilities alongside our own – including our dedicated global network infrastructure – it was clear that this was the perfect fit."

Nicki Boyd, Apiary Capital partner, concluded:

"We are delighted to be supporting the compelling merger of Connect and G3. Alex and James have a shared vision of building a platform of significant scale in the market they both serve so well. We believe this is just the start of an exciting and highly productive collaboration and it is fantastic to be working with experienced and likeminded people who are totally aligned with our goals and objectives."

A team of GCA Altium advisors, led by James Craven and including Declan O’Connor and Alex Coral, provided exclusive buy-side advice to Apiary Capital on the merger.

Connect Managed Services has considerable merger and acquisition experience. The company in 2018 acquired CoolHarbour -- a unified communications consultancy and system integrator that pioneered the adoption of Amazon Connect – AWS’s on-demand contact center service in Europe. The company also bought the assets and technical teams of U.S.-based UVN.

MSPs, IT Service Providers: European Mergers and Acquisitions

This is the latest in a growing list of MSP mergers and acquisitions across Europe. Here's a sampling of 25-plus plus M&A deals that ChannelE2E has tracked in Europe.

Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri is co-founder & editorial director of MSSP Alert and ChannelE2E, the two leading news & analysis sites for managed service providers in the cybersecurity market.