Pulsant, the cloud computing, managed hosting and colocation provider, has announced the acquisition of Onyx, an IT infrastructure services provider. This acquisition forms part of Pulsant’s strategy to enhance capabilities and strengthen its market position. The acquisition will benefit both existing and potential customers.
Onyx focuses on providing cloud, colocation, remote and on-site IT management, workplace recovery, applications management and security solutions to customers. Backed by mid-market private equity firm Livingbridge in 2011, it now has five datacentres in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Sheffield and Newcastle, and other business continuity centres and offices around the UK. The company’s staff, technology platforms and infrastructure will be integrated with Pulsant’s over the coming months.
The combined business will have almost 400 staff, revenues of £75m and over 4,000 customers in a variety of industries. Pulsant says that the acquisition will also add to its capabilities as a provider of hybrid IT services — particularly in the areas of applications management, remote and on-site managed services, workplace recovery and security — and expand its reach in the UK to deliver more options for resiliency and a stronger portfolio of solutions to customers.
Pulsant CEO Mark Howling noted:
Bringing Onyx and its capabilities into Pulsant is the latest step in our targeted acquisition strategy. The acquisition increases the scale of our business and the breadth of services we can offer, which is crucial as multi-cloud environments become more complex and more important.
Neil Stephenson, Onyx CEO, commented:
We have known Pulsant for many years and always felt that combining Onyx and Pulsant would provide a very strong UK-wide player. Both businesses have complementary capabilities and locations, and this acquisition enables the enlarged business to offer a stronger, broader range of services to our joint customers. The cultures of our two organisations are also very similar, which was a big factor in selecting Pulsant as the acquirer.
Pulsant also appointed Mike Tobin as its new Chairman. Pieter Knook, Pulsant’s existing chairman, will continue to serve on the board as deputy chairman.