02 August 2005
Logicalis Group acquires 3i backed HP Elite Partner Hawke Systems
Increases revenues in the UK to UK£100 million
Logicalis Group has acquired Hawke Systems, a supplier of advanced computing infrastructure solutions. With annual revenues of over UK£15 million, Berkshire-based Hawke is a 3i-backed privately-held company. Hawke has a strong reputation in the design and implementation of complex storage and high availability server solutions and is one of HP's top Enterprise partners and one of only a few HP Storage Elite Partners in the UK.
The agreement is the latest of a series of deals concluded as Logicalis continues its strategy of both organic growth and acquisition to augment its offering and add to the skills of its UK business. Hawke will become the HP-focussed division of Logicalis Computing Solutions under the leadership of Logicalis Computing Solutions' managing director Steve Ellis.
Hawke serves a broad range of 200 blue-chip and mid-market customers including: Diageo; AWE; Tarmac; Camelot; ITV; EADS; Astrium; Corus; Merthyr CBC; Coats; Suffolk CC; GE Amersham; Budget Rent a Car and Portman Building Society. As well as HP, its partners include: Veritas; NetApp; VMWare; Legato; KVS and Sun. Hawke's storage solutions cover the full spectrum of storage requirements, including: SANs; NAS; Backup and Recovery; Storage Resource Management; Disk and Tape Solutions; Disaster Recovery; Email archiving and emerging technologies such as enterprise ATA and iSCSI SANs.
In addition, Hawke has a number of partnerships with companies which utilise the company's technical skills to design solutions for their customers. These include:Inmac; PCWorld Business; LogicaCMG and Centerprise.
Strengthens UK operations
The acquisition of Hawke significantly strengthens Logicalis Europe's key UK operations and balances its existing Cisco and IBM-based business, emphasises Logicalis Group CEO, Jens Montanana. "This acquisition enables us to take another big step forward in building further breadth into a business that offers not only networking but also significant enterprise computing and storage solutions. It will also add scale to the Logicalis UK business, increasing annualised revenues from over UK£80 million to approximately UK£100 million."
The acquisition is complementary to Logicalis' recent (March 2005) acquisition of UK£30million turnover Notability which positioned Logicalis Group as a strategic IBM Partner in both the UK and US markets - Logicalis recently also acquired Solution Technology Inc., a US Premier IBM business partner and Eisco Technology Inc. a US IBM solution provider that focuses on high-end IBM zSeries mainframe solutions.
As such, the acquisition of Hawke will ensure that Logicalis UK revenue streams more closely resemble the group's existing US business mix and develops a strong multi-vendor storage offering. It offers substantial opportunities to develop business for Logicalis Network Solutions and also allows Logicalis UK to take advantage of UK HP opportunities from Logicalis US customers where Logicalis is HP's largest US Enterprise Solutions Partner.
This latest move is part of a strategy, says Ian Cook, CEO of Logicalis' European operations, whereby Logicalis intends to become a dominant supplier in its sector - delivering secure, converged computing and communications infrastructure and services for ambitious and innovative organisations.
"These developments mean that Logicalis will differentiate itself from its competitors by not only having a superior understanding of the increasingly complex end-to-end information flows in an organisation, but by using that knowledge to design, install and manage systems and system components – particularly in the HP and IBM enterprise server and storage arena," he emphasises.
Such information flows are increasing in complexity because more devices and technologies are being added to the infrastructure, and business concepts such as e-business, web enablement and on-demand computing are being adopted.
According to Cook, the acquisition of Hawke will allow Logicalis Group's capabilities to meet that of Computacenter and, in terms of enterprise computing reseller revenues, to overhaul Morse and SCC.
Adds Hawke managing director Rob Jefferson, "Hawke's management team is very excited at the prospect of being part of the Logicalis Group at such an exciting time. Together, the combined companies will offer complementary solutions that will not only continue to satisfy existing customers but will provide inroads into new and incremental business against the background of rapidly growing demand for converged infrastructures and services where server and storage skills and expertise really count."
About Logicalis
Logicalis is an international provider of high-performance IT integration solutions. The Logicalis Group employs 800 people worldwide, including highly-trained service specialists who specify, design, deploy and manage IT infrastructure to meet the needs of over 5,000 corporate and public sector customers. Logicalis maintains strong partnerships with technology leaders such as IBM, HP and Cisco.
In addition, Logicalis in the UK has achieved independent triple certification for its integrated management system supporting computing and communications solutions, information security and IT service management offerings: ISO 9001/2000; ISO 27001 and ISO 20000 respectively.
The Logicalis Group is a division of Datatec Limited, a $2.5 billion business listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. With its international headquarters in the UK, Logicalis has annualised revenues in excess of $500 million from operations in the U.S., UK, Germany, and South America. For more information, visit www.uk.logicalis.com.
About Hawke
Hawke was founded in 1982 originally part of the Lex Group as a DEC reseller. In 1990 the management team led an MBO backed by 3i.
Hawke exists to help organisations improve their technology infrastructure. Its ability to support their business through expertise in high-availability storage and server technology is backed by quality planning, design and implementation skills and a range of other complementary services that have been honed over 20 years of delivering complex IT projects on time and on budget. For more information, visit www.hawke.co.uk.