CAE Technology Services, a Cisco Gold partner, has been acquired in a management buyout. Caerus, which is owned by CAE CEO Justin Harling and COO Richard Behanwas, made the acquisition. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Harling joined the company in 2000, becoming its managing director in 2004 and CEO in May 2018. Harling says he and Behan believe the company has even more potential for growth.
“We are confident that this acquisition will put CAE in the best possible position to move forward with purpose, pace and agility,” he said. “We have enormous desire to see what can be achieved with the amazing teams that exist throughout the business.”
The deal comes as the digital workspace, data centre, and networking provider exceeded an annual turnover of £100 million (approximately US$128.2 million) for the first time.
CAE was named Cisco’s Commercial Partner of the year for Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Russia in 2017. And for 2018, the company emerged as Cisco's UK Partner of the Year for Cisco Capital as well as Customer Experience. The company's customer base includes enterprise and public sector clientele.
Cisco Partner M&A Deals
M&A activity within Cisco's partner ecosystem has remained steady, though it's difficult to pinpoint deal valuations. Among the partner deals we’ve tracked in the last 12 months or so:
- April, 2018: Bulletproof Infotech, an MSP, acquired majority position in Cisco Systems partner Concordis Solutions Inc.
- March, 2018: Two Cisco Systems partners — CIO Solutions and TekTegrity — merge to offer IT management & consulting services to key California regions.
- March, 2018: After a six-year hiatus, Munich-based VAR Cancom re-entered the United Kingdom by acquiring Ocean Intelligent Communications, a Cisco partner.
- January, 2018: PCM acquired Cisco, Avaya & Huawei partner Provista for UK push across networking, security, hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI), cloud services & more.
- December, 2017: ConvergeOne acquired Alexander Open Systems (AOS), a Microsoft and Cisco Systems partner with managed services expertise
Like Cisco itself, the company's partner ecosystem has been evolving toward software, recurring revenues and subscription services.
