Manchester VAR BCN Group acquires Xicon Cloud as M&A spree continues

Fast-growing firm makes third acquisition in 18 months

Fast-growing VAR BCN Group has acquired Warrington-based firm Xicon Cloud for an undisclosed sum in a bid to cement itself as a leading provider of cloud solutions.

Founded in Warrington in 1991 Xicon Cloud is a private cloud provider partnering with vendors including Microsoft Azure, AWS and Citrix.

The firm boasts expertise and experience in providing services for the NHS with accredited access to the NHS' Health and Social Care Network.

BCN Group, which posted revenues of £11.3m in its last financial year ending 30 April 2019, claims the acquisition will complement its existing G-Cloud offering as well as broaden its product portfolio to offer additional services.

Manchester-based BCN claims Xicon has posted strong organic growth in recent years and will further bolster its annuity contract revenue and margin.

It marks the third acquisition in 18 months for BCN Group, having previously acquired Microsoft Cloud firm Polymorph in February last year and Yorkshire-based services firm BlueLogic in May 2019.

"The acquisition of Xicon Cloud significantly strengthens our cloud product and service offering and provides a tremendous opportunity for BCN Group to further cement itself as a leading provider of cloud solutions," said BCN Group CEO Simon Kelf.

"In addition, I have been very impressed by the skills and talents of the Xicon Cloud team, who will be a great addition to BCN Group. I am incredibly excited about the growth potential this acquisition has created and how it will allow us to extend the range of solutions we can offer our customers."

Simon Heyes, CEO of Xicon Cloud, added: "This exciting opportunity will allow both organisations and our customers to benefit from the joint capabilities of a larger team and wider product portfolios."

"I have been extremely impressed with the experience and aspirations of the entire BCN Group management team and the synergies between our organisations. We are looking forward to continuing to provide a great service to our customers both old and new."

BCN landed a "significant" debt facility in April 2019, funded by NatWest, in order to support an acquisition strategy to expand the scope and scale of its portfolio.