New Charter Technologies, backed by private equity firm Oval Partners, has acquired CommTech -- an MSP in Metairie, Louisiana, that serves clientele in New Orleans and across the U.S. Gulf Coast. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
This is technology M&A deal number 354 that ChannelE2E has covered so far in 2021. See all technology M&A deals for 2021 and 2020 listed here.
New Charter has now acquired and/or invested in 10 MSPs since 2020 -- including names like Braver Technology, Olmec Systems, Greystone Technology, and The Tech Group. New Charter's four founding MSPs, as announced in September 2020, are:
- ActiveCo Technology Management of Vancouver, British Columbia.
- Apex Technology Management of Redding, California.
- DCG Technical Solutions of Los Angeles, California.
- PennComp Outsourced IT of Houston, Texas.
Still, this isn't your traditional "sell and exit" strategy for each of the MSP owners. Instead, Oval Partners essentially is driving an "invest and scale" strategy -- which keeps the MSP entrepreneurs in place to run and expand each business through shared knowledge.
Financial backer Oval Partners is a multi-family office investment firm designed to "provide liquidity, growth, capital and acquisition funding to founders of growing businesses across North America." Unlike most private equity firms, Oval’s capital base is permanent—which means the firm isn't constrained to a specific holding/ownership period. Oval’s principals have completed more than 100 deals involving investments, acquisitions, exits, and re-financings.
Executive Perspectives
In a prepared statement about the deal, New Charter Technologies CEO Mitch Morgan said:
“We are very excited to have such a talented team join New Charter. CommTech brings a tremendous legacy of operational maturity and innovation in the Gulf South market.”
Added Darryl d’Aquin, CEO of CommTech:
“There’s tremendous value in a peer network. New Charter is a peer network on steroids because you have a vested interest in each of the Partners and are working together to be better. When we can have companies take the lead and focus exclusively on for example, cybersecurity, then we’re better protecting ourselves and our clients. This benefit was one of the tipping points supporting my interest to be involved.”
Concluded John Knoll, co-founder and managing director at Oval:
“CommTech represents the 10th high quality MSP to join the New Charter platform. Darryl and the team have a legacy of success and expertise that will strengthen the New Charter partnership and create greater opportunity to grow the business and serve our customers across the country.”
New Charter Business Strategy: Scale Existing MSP Leaders, Together
Here are the five pillars that make up the foundation of New Charter, according to the firm:
- The platform partners with business owners who are not sellers but rather looking for an opportunity to continue what they’re doing and having a financial partner for further investment.
- A team of business owners to partner with for the sharing of new ideas and industry best practices to accelerate their business forward.
- The foundation of the model is centered around the idea that the Managed IT industry is a “people-business” requiring a local touch and should not be consolidated in order to build upon success and reach new growth and service delivery levels.
- The partners who make up the New Charter banner are high growth and high margin businesses who share a common set of cultural and business objectives.
- The owners are the Leadership team and are collaborating and strategizing in a way that has never been seen in the industry.
