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

PE-Backed CDI Acquires Plan B Technologies

Computer Design & Integration (CDI) has acquired Plan B Technologies (PBT), an IT solutions and professional services provider based in Annapolis, Maryland. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. This is M&A deal 274 that ChannelE2E has covered so far in 2020. See the complete M&A deal list here.

This is M&A deal 274 that ChannelE2E has covered so far in 2020. See the complete M&A deal list here.

Headquartered in New York City, CDI provides IT infrastructure hardware and software, consulting, and managed services. For this deal, CDI was backed by middle-market private equity firm One Equity Partners (OEP), which first invested in CDI in January 2020.

The company, which also has offices in Teterboro, New Jersey; Boston, Massachusetts; and Atlanta, Georgia, is calling this acquisition the “first phase” in an aggressive M&A growth strategy.

For its part, PBT provides storage area networking, backup, recovery and archiving, security and network infrastructure, virtualization, and Microsoft solutions for infrastructure, applications, and desktops. This deal allows both CDI and PBT to grow their service offerings, strengthen ongoing relationships with key technology partners, and expand sales reach across the eastern U.S., the companies said.

PBT Acquisition: A “Synergistic” Approach

Rich Falcone, President, CDI
Rich Falcone, president, CDI

Rich Falcone, president, CDI, commented:

“Welcoming PBT to the CDI family demonstrates that we have taken another major step in differentiating our capabilities and services. PBT’s extensive virtualization experience perfectly aligns with our digital workspace offerings and the new work-from-anywhere reality. This acquisition provides the opportunity to add scale, increase our current skillset, and develop the solutions our customers need to accelerate innovation. We are well-positioned for continued market leadership and look forward to this next chapter.”

Donnie W. Downs, president and CEO, PBT, said:

“We are celebrating a milestone today. PBT and CDI have a successful history of working together to deliver complex IT solutions. We are synergistic in our approach to all areas of business and complimentary in the technologies that we deliver. I am thrilled about the future and its possibilities.”

CDI’s Growth Strategy

CDI’s core business is centered on its data center expertise and its cloud and managed services portfolio. Prior to receiving the investment from OEP, the company sold off its SMB clientele to WorkSmart in October 2018.

These days, CDI’s enterprise-class consulting and managed services capabilities work in both on-premises and across public clouds. The company has close partnerships with Cohesity, Pure Storage, ServiceNow, Varonis and VMware, and is a Dell EMC Titanium partner. Moreover, CDI was one of the first MSPs to support VMware Cloud on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

At the time of the investment, CDI said it would use the money to make “major investments in its public cloud, security, application re-platforming, DevOps and IT service and operations management” expertise. CDI also said it would expand its talent pool and geographic reach.

Some of OEP’s key investments have included SAP partner Rizing, and digital transformation specialist Orion Business Information, the firm notes.

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