Portal Partnership on ambitious growth trail
IBM VAR sets sights high with Elyzium merger and enters into talks with Time Solutions
IBM VAR Portal Partnership (PP) has finally completed its third merger and has aggressive targets to become a £50m reseller behemoth.
The reseller, which originated with the merger of NetInfo and Altis, last week completed the merger of Elyzium and has commenced merger negotiations with a fourth company, Time Solutions, as revealed by CRN last year (CRN, 26 June 2006).
The combined company will turn over £16m this year, according to chief executive of PP, John Lindley.
“We brought the business processes from all the businesses together first, and then followed with the legal and financial side,” he said. “Everything was finalised last week and all new business will come through Portal as Elyzium ceases to exist.”
He added: “By 2010 we want to be recording revenues of £50m with 10 per cent profit margin. With our executive team in place and covering all of the IBM software brands as we now do, we have a stable top of the business and sales and services teams that are primed for growth.”
Lindley said there would be no redundancies following the latest merger and that the VAR would look to hire consultants and back-office staff later in the year.
“We now cover all of the IBM software brands and, as we announced earlier this year, we are looking to partner with other IBM resellers,” he said. He did not rule out future mergers, particulary a VAR with IBM Rational skills.
Andy Binding, managing director of PP distributor Magirus, said IBM has been encouraging this kind of ecosystem between partners for a while.
“This is not a question of size,” he said. “It is creating a more inclusive whole. Each partner has specific skills sets to bring to the merger and it is reasonable to assume its next addition should be in the Rational space. But it won’t buy for the sake of size.”
Justin Harling, managing director at CAE, said: “This is something all resellers are being encouraged to do – VARs are partnering with VARs to gain extra skills – it is the next logical step before consolidation.”