Mergers and Acquisitions, MSP, Content

Uniserve Acquires Microsoft Azure Cloud, MSP Partner Xanity

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Gurmeet Jutla
Gurmeet Jutla
Sarah Morton

Uniserve Communications is acquiring Xanity Cloud Solutions, a British Columbia-based managed service provider (MSP) with Microsoft Azure Pack expertise. Xanity. Sarah Morton, CEO of Xanity, will join Uniserve as the head of Enterprise Managed Services and Data Centre Group. Financial terms for the deal, which is expected to close this month, were not disclosed.

The Microsoft Azure Pack expertise is particularly key to the deal, according to Uniserve VP of Technology Gurmeet Jutla. In a prepared statement, Jutla said:

By having our own Microsoft Azure Pack, hosted on the west coast of Canada, companies will now have the ability to run their primary workload in a private cloud while being able to augment spot resources in the public Azure cloud for the small durations required.  This is feasible and very advantageous for businesses, because the two clouds are very similar. Given the politics in the UK and issues around data sovereignty and security in the US -- this makes eminent sense for the Canadian market.”

Uniserve, founded nearly 30 years ago, focuses heavily on unified communications with additional offerings that span managed, data center, backup, fiber optic broadband and security services. The company has roughly 13,000 customers spanning residential, small office/home office (Soho) and business settings.

On a related note, Uniserve apparently has raised some money for working capital. The company has agreed to a private placement of 4,000,000 Units at $0.10 per unit -- or about $400,000 -- closing on or before June 30 2017. The company also exercised more than 12 million warrants at $0.10.

Uniserve Business Transformation, and New CEO

Uniserve has been transforming its business, and the financial results show progress. For the first three quarters of 2017, gross revenues were $5.64 million -- up 20 percent from $4.68 million during the corresponding three quarters last year. During the same periods, operating expenses dropped 15.4 percent and EBITDA shifted from a $296,000 loss to a $256,000 profit, the company said in April 2017.

New CEO Nicholas Jeffery, who arrived in March 2017, shared more details about his management style and Uniserve's business at that time:

Multiple Microsoft-centric MSPs have been acquired over the past few months. Recent Microsoft partner acquisitions have involved such buyers as BlackStoneCloud Direct, EMIT and PCM Inc., just  to name a few.

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.