DataSolutions MD on Climb buyout: 'We politely discounted past offers, but Climb was the right fit'

The Irish VAD was recently scooped up by distributor Climb Global Solutions for $16.3m

DataSolutions has found a new owner in Climb Global Solutions after the Irish VAD was snapped up for $16.3m last week.

A marriage between the two provides Climb with DataSolutions' share of the Irish market and growing position in the UK.

Speaking with CRN, DataSolutions managing director Michael O'Hara outlines the opportunities the deal presents his company.

The VAD boss first gives a sense of how long the acquisition had been in the works, revealing DataSolutions has been courted with other proposals in the past.

"It goes back to last year. We were approached by several interested parties, international distributors looking to grow their revenues and their market share," he says.

"We weren't looking at it. We were focused on continuing to grow as we felt we hadn't reached our true potential as DataSolutions.

"But after having received interest we decided to investigate the opportunity a little bit more fully. Earlier this year, we appointed KPMG to carry out a full market review going across the states and Europe to see what the level of interest was.

"In August, we went into exclusive negotiations with Climb and very quickly closed out the deal in the first week of October."

O'Hara continues to open up about what made DataSolutions reconsider an offer, confessing it was something to the effect of being the right place at the right time.

"Every year we would hear from someone looking to find out if we were interested in selling.

"We discounted them politely because we felt we were growing and had a market opportunity to increase the value of DataSolutions.

"But last year after having several parties interested, and I have to say I think there's still a lot of interest out there for consolidation in the distribution market, we decided to do a review and felt Climb was the best fit for us at this time."

O'Hara reiterates how much of a critical aspect it was that both companies shared the same values for a deal to work.

"It really was down to the fit. I remember the first time I talked to Dale Foster, CEO of Climb and straightaway, what he wanted to focus on was the culture and the team.

"It wasn't about the figures, the revenues, the margins. For him, it's very important that the culture and the fit was right. And that really appealed to us."

What Climb offers DataSolutions

Headquartered in New Jersey, US, NASDAQ-listed Climb boasts revenues in excess of a billion dollars and operates across North America, the UK, mainland Europe and now in Ireland.

However, O'Hara states that Climb view themselves as a small player on the global stage where it competes with giants whose revenues exceed $40bn per annum.

"And this is very similar to how we would view DataSolutions," he says.

"We are not dissimilar, we can't offer the same as the big disties that have the branding and the scale and the breadth of reseller partners. So we have to differentiate ourselves with the speed of how we respond to our partners, and the quality of the service."

Despite this, Climb has a significant footprint in the UK following its acquisitions of Sigma and Spinnakar in 2020 and 2022, respectively, establishing a roster of vendors where he can already see synergies with the DataSolutions vendors.

"The deal also gives us an extensive channel of resellers, access to a significant talent pool and a proven leadership team."

Priorities going forward

As news of the acquisition broke just last week, O'Hara says his immediate priorities lie with addressing the concerns of the people within DataSolutions.

"We have a really excellent, experienced, and professional team.

"The average tenure of our staff is ten years. We're very proud of that fact and this allows us to be able to give that professional and consistent service to our customers.

"Similarly with our partners, we want to assure them that there'll be no decline in the services we give them. And in fact, we look forward to being able to advise them of the bigger opportunity that exists."