South African-headquartered technology services group Dimension Data, which is owned by Japan’s Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp, has acquired US-based IT solutions provider Nexus.
Although the value of the deal has not been disclosed, it’s understood it’s one of Dimension Data’s biggest acquisitions in years. Nexus has annual revenues of more than US$450m (R4,8bn).
Through the deal, 657 Nexus employees will join Dimension Data.
It’s the biggest US acquisition for the group at least since Proxicom, a company for which it paid $448m during the dot-com bubble in 2001 after becoming involved in a bidding war with Compaq Computer (a company later bought by Hewlett-Packard).
The new deal comes less than three months after Dimension Data announced it was acquiring “certain subsidiaries” of European multinational communications technology group NextiraOne.
The latest acquisition, coupled with the NextiraOne deal, will help Dimension Data in reaching its stated target of doubling its revenue by 2018 from $6bn to $12bn. Group CEO Brett Dawson has said previously it intends reaching that target through both organic growth and through acquisitions.
Nexus was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in California. The company is a privately owned provider of advanced IT solutions for large enterprises, midsized businesses and government clients. It specialises in the education, retail, hospitality and healthcare sectors.
Its technology partners include Cisco, EMC, VMWare, Citrix, NetApp, Apple and Microsoft.
According to Dimension Data, the deal expands its operations in the US by 40% and significantly increases its presence in the west, south-west and south-east regions of the country.
Nexus has 19 offices located in California, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Washington, Texas, Georgia, Florida and North Carolina.
“Nexus increases our ability to support both our US-based and global clients with west coast presence,” says Dawson.
Deron Pearson will stay on as Nexus CEO and will report to Mark Slaga, the CEO of Dimension Data Americas. Nexus president and chief operating officer Waheed Choudhry will continue to run Nexus’s day-to-day operations, reporting to Pearson. — (c) 2014 NewsCentral Media
