Sabio makes second acquisition with DatapointEurope deal

Takeover comes after comms VAR snapped up Surrey-based Rapport in March

Comms VAR Sabio has completed its second acquisition in two months after acquiring pan-European service provider DatapointEurope.

Headquartered in Madrid, DatapointEurope has offices in Barcelona, London, Milan, Munich, Paris and Utrecht.

The acquisition is the second in Sabio's M&A strategy after securing a £30m pot from private equity house Lyceum Capital last year. The VAR snapped up Surrey-based Rapport in March.

The two acquisitions take Sabio up to around £60m revenue, compared with the £43.4m filed with Companies House for the year ending 30 September 2016.

Mike Andrews (pictured), executive vice president for go-to-market at Sabio, told CRN that the DatapointEurope deal takes Sabio into a number of European countries where it didn't previously have a presence.

"This time last year we stated that the plan was to grow our base," he said. "We wanted to extend ourselves from a geographical perspective and a technology perspective.

"DatapointEurope is an organisation that has incredibly close alignment with Sabio from a cultural and ethical perspective.

"We're incredibly well aligned and we have almost no geographic overlap, so between the two organisations we saw a fantastic and ideal opportunity to build a great company."

Before the acquisition Sabio saw around 20 per cent of its business come from outside the UK.

Andrews said that Sabio will not initiate any integration plans for three months while it assesses the two businesses, but the DatapointEurope name is set to remain, as are DatapointEurope's offices and employees.

From a technology perspective Andrews said there is a degree of crossover in the Sabio and DatapointEurope vendor portfolios, but that different European regions tend to demand different solutions.

"DatapointEurope have a similar strategy, which is to partner with best-of-breed technology organisations in the contact centre world," he said.

"They have a broad portfolio - there is some overlap with ours which is really helpful, particularly around Avaya - however, each different geography does have different business needs and different vendors resonate in those areas.

"We'll have a broad portfolio of technology and services and I expect to maintain that where it is relevant."

Andrews was tight-lipped regarding Sabio's future acquisition strategy, saying that further M&A activity is in the pipeline but that it is "too difficult" to put a timeframe on future deals.

He added that any future deals will focus on three key areas: expanding Sabio's customer base, geographic reach, and technical expertise.