Xploite acquires Anix

Acquisition-hungry VAR buys reseller in the IBM space for more growth and expanded storage product set

As predicted by CRN, VAR Xploitehas completed the acquisition of Bristol-based Anix Group for a total of £10.45m. Xploite will pay a cash consideration of £4.35m and repay £6.10m of debt held by Anix.

Xploite (formerly known as Fujin) has previously told CRN it is looking to become a £100m storage business. Anix is focused mainly around storage and is an IBM Business Partner. For the year ended 31 December, Anix’s turnover was £35.5m and earnings before internet, tax and amortisation was £1.6 million. The company had £9m of recurring revenue from maintenance and services provided to customers and assets of £500,000.

Ian Smith, chief executive of Xploite, said in a statement: “In line with our stated strategy to expand in the IT storage services sub-sector, we now have a combined entity with annualised turnover in excess of £53m. We are very confident of extracting synergy and value from the combination of these two companies, which together have cost approximately £15m.”

Earlier this year Xploite acquires storage VAR Positiv for £4.6m, which included its reseller agreement with storage vendor Network Appliance (NetApp)
Smith added: “There is an excellent opportunity to become a premier partner to IBM in the UK and following IBM’s strategic decision to resell NetApp products we are in a strong position to leverage our skills in both the IBM and NetApp product sets, combining the experience within each of Posetiv and Anix”.