Evergreen, the private equity firm that bills itself as a permanent home for MSP businesses under a buy-and-hold strategy, acquired three more UK-based MSPs in Q4 2024 that will be added to its UK MSP holdings that it began buying in 2023.
The latest three acquired MSPs – ITBuilder, Certum and CIS Ltd. – will be operated independently and managed by Evergreen’s MSP arm, Lyra Technology Group. Financial details of the transactions were not disclosed. Lyra operates Evergreen’s portfolio of managed IT services providers.
The ITBuilder, Certum, and CIS Ltd. acquisitions will bring Evergreen’s MSP holdings in the UK to five companies, including its previous purchases of The Final Step and Digital Origin in 2023.
Evergreen emerged in 2024 as a prominent player in the MSP sector after strategically acquiring MSPs for nearly seven years, according to earlier ChannelE2E reports. Earlier in December 2024, the private equity firm acquired its eighth MSP in Australia when it announced the purchase of the global consultancy CT Group. The CT Group, which provides expertise in research, intelligence, campaigns, and advisory services, will also be managed by Evergreen’s Lyra Technology Group. Evergreen says its acquisition strategy is rooted in its commitment to providing a stable, permanent home for businesses.
‘Smart, Strategic Move,’ Says Analyst
Shelly Kramer, the managing director and principal analyst at theCUBE Research, told ChannelE2E that the latest string of acquisitions is a “smart, strategic move on the part of Evergreen” as IT tech, , marketing, and management stacks become increasingly complex and challenging for SMBs and enterprises.
“For tech vendors, MSPs provide a very valuable service: Supporting customers and helping ensure they get value out of the tech solutions they utilize across an organization," said Kramer. “MSPs are also channel partners for enterprise tech vendors, driving sales in significant ways, which I believe is a key part of this value prop. Moreover, Evergreen's 'knitting together' a network of complementary managed services providers should not only spur growth, innovation, and revenue, but also partner where applicable to more fully serve customers.”
Another analyst, Rob Enderle, principal of Enderle Group, told ChannelE2E that one thing Evergreen must be careful of is to be sure that it continues to watch out for the customers and employees of each business it has acquired.
“If the customers are cared for, the workloads are not significantly increased, and the proper monitoring is in place to assure the customers’ loyalty, then customers do benefit from a larger pool of services and a greater reach of the newly built firm,” said Enderle. “Watch how the employees react to the acquisitions, and it would be wise to look at when the retention bonuses pay out as, if the employees are not well cared for, that is when the combined firm may lose a critical mass of workers. Evergreen appears to be good at this, suggesting they have a workable path to assure they retain enough people from the acquisitions to sustain this process.”
More Details About the Latest UK Evergreen Acquisitions
According to Evergreen, the company’s rapid expansion into the UK market further underscores its commitment to empowering and providing resources for the global MSP and IT services communities while allowing them to retain their unique identity and leverage Evergreen’s expertise. Under this strategy, Evergreen bills itself as the ideal permanent home for MSPs looking to sell their businesses.
ITBuilder is a Hertfordshire-based full-service MSP offering essential technology services to small and medium-sized enterprises in the UK. ITBuilder has 25 full-time employees and more than 200 customers.
Certum, which is one of the largest IT and telecom service companies in Glasgow, specializes in delivering business value with unified and broad support through a team of 40 employees.
CIS Ltd., which was founded in 1989, provides IT support, including cybersecurity, cloud, and data backup services. Based in Oxfordshire, the company has about 30 employees.
About Evergreen
Evergreen operates businesses in four industries, including managed IT services, application software partners, government IT services, and financial technology. The company has about 4,500 employees worldwide. Founded in 2017, Evergreen is based in San Francisco, California.
In May of 2024, Evergreen acquired Microsoft partner Solution Systems, Inc., which will join Evergreen's ERP branch, Pine Services Group, to further scale Pine's position in the Microsoft Dynamics channel, according to the companies.
In April of 2024, Evergreen’s government IT services and software contracting division, Cedar Solutions Group, acquired Omnyon, a mission-critical IT services company. Omnyon specializes in software engineering, systems administration, systems engineering, technical writing, network engineering, software integration, test engineering, data science, program management, technical leadership, and cloud engineering.
