VAR claims to be 'number one in education' after 24th acquisition
Firm tells CRN it now services 4,000 schools after snapping up education-focused peer
Kent-based Adept Telecom has acquired Atomwide and claimed it is now "number one in education".
The deal is Adept Telecom's 24th acquisition in the last 14 years and the second this calendar year after buying Our IT Department in February.
Ian Fishwick, chief executive of Adept Telecom, told CRN that the acquisition of Atomwide was motivated by its involvement in the London Grid for Learning - one of the few examples of all 33 London boroughs working together - where Atomwide is the chief technology partner.
"The acquisition of Atomwide moves us to number one in education in one go. We now have over 4,000 schools as customers and over two million users," he said.
"This acquisition carries on two aspects for us: pushing hard into the public sector, and our transition into a managed services business. Sixty-five per cent of what we do now is managed services."
Fishwick said that Adept has increased its bank facilities to £30m and £7m to £8m of that remains unused, meaning acquisitions will continue.
"We are moving very strongly into both unified comms and IT managed services. Moving forward we might look at [acquiring] a Mitel or Cisco business," added Fishwick.
Adept said it will buy Atomwide for up to £20m. Also based in Kent, Atomwide focuses on the education sector, offering the likes of Dell, Cisco, Sharp and NEC. For the year ended March 31, Atomwide reported turnover and pre-tax profit of £7.5m and £1.9m, respectively.