Although high interest rates continued to suppress M&A levels last year, an unusually high number of sizeable resellers and MSPs sold up or changed owners.
Here we count down the 11 biggest channel partners that changed hands, going by their most recent reported annual revenues.
Some six of the 11 were trade deals, with five private equity takeovers (three of which were secondary buyouts).
Four involved partners with revenues of over £200m.
Click through to find out who made the cut…
11. Servium acquired by Advania UK
Revenues of acquired company: £32m
Month: June
Rationale
Having acquired giant Microsoft MSP Content+Cloud in 2021, Advania UK in late 2023 began eyeing up targets in the adjacent reseller space.
It pounced on Servium, a Chessington-based reseller boasting close ties with vendors including HP, Dell, Lenovo and HPE, in June.
“They are so strong with Microsoft. It really is like going from the Championship straight into the Premier League,” Servium MD Paul Barlow told IT Channel Oxygen at the time of the deal.
What happened next?
Advania UK went onto make an even bigger reseller acquisition in October in the shape of CCS Media. The two brands will be integrated at some point in 2025, CEO Geoff Kneen told IT Channel Oxygen in December.
See next page for 10 bigger deals…
