JSE-listed Altron’s IT subsidiary, Bytes Technology Group, has acquired UK-based IT security specialist Security Partnerships in an all-cash deal worth R72m.

Security Partnerships provides IT security solutions and managed services to business and government. The acquisition is being done on a two-year earn-out to ensure continuity of management, Bytes says.

Bytes CEO Rob Abraham says the deal is line with a strategy to grow the company through acquisitions and organically.

“We are looking to mirror our local group in the UK, and thereby stimulate overall group growth,” he says, adding that this latest acquisition should add about R13m to annual earnings.

Abraham says the IT security market is enjoying strong growth in spite of poor economic conditions. “We are seeing double-digit growth in the security space.”

Security Partnerships will continue to run autonomously in line with Bytes’s “federated business model”, he says.

Bytes’s UK operation is already a Microsoft licensing partner and claims to be that country’s largest distributor of Xerox office automation products.

Abraham says Bytes will continue to look for acquisitions to “complement and diversify its existing offerings”. — Staff reporter, TechCentral