IT services company Arkphire has completed its acquisition of Trilogy Technologies, after the deal was green-lighted by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Arkphire described the deal as a significant step towards consolidation in the Irish ICT managed services sector. The enlarged group will be the largest Irish-headquartered IT procurement and managed services business, with 220 people on the payroll.

Headquartered in Sandyford, Dublin, Arkphire employs c.100 people and has been in business for 40 years. It provides a range of IT services from procurement through to managed services, networking and data centre operations.

Arkphire has operations in Dublin, Mayo, London, Sao Paulo, Singapore, Tel Aviv and Tokyo, with clients hailing from the tech, finance, pharma, utilities and legal spheres. Turnover in the year to June 2019 surged by 40% to €126m and the business booked a net profit of €6m.

Established in 2009, Trilogy Technologies specialises in the design, implementation, management and support of IT infrastructure, cloud and managed security services for Irish and UK organisations.

In Association with

Trilogy employs 110 people and is headquartered in Dublin, with an office in London. Revenue in 2018 rose 10% year-on-year to €7.5m. The company booked a loss of €260,000 due to ‘financial reorganisation’.

Trilogy ended 2018 with total liabilities of €4.2m and negative net worth of €895,000. Year-end trade debtors were €1.5m, up from €1.3m a year earlier.

Both companies have been on the acquisition trail over the last few years. In 2018, Trilogy acquired Zinopy Security, a specialist provider of IT cybersecurity and workspace virtualisation solutions. Deal funding was provided by BMS. The same year, Arkphire acquired CloudStrong, a specialist cloud solutions provider based in Castlebar.

Commenting on the acquisition of Trilogy, Arkphire CEO Paschal Naylor said it was a positive step for both businesses. “Trilogy Technologies is one of Ireland’s most highly regarded ICT managed services companies with a great management team, customer base and a service portfolio.

Paul Nannetti, chairman at Arkphire, added: "We will now embark on a process to explore synergies and new growth opportunities across the newly enlarged Arkphire group. A key element of this will be to transition all distinct parts of the business under the one overarching Arkphire brand with a unified set of values, goals and ambitions."

Arkphire and Trilogy Technologies will initially remain as distinct businesses.

The senior management teams across both organisations will remain in their roles.  Trilogy Technologies’ co-founder and managing director Edel Creely is joining the board of Arkphire.

“We are delighted to join the team at Arkphire at this particular time in our evolution,” said Creely. “The move will accelerate our ambition to invest and scale the business, where our combined capabilities will allow us to exploit new opportunities to grow the business both in Ireland and internationally.”

The principal Trilogy Technologies shareholders are Edel Creely (35%), Arthur Griffin (30%), John Casey (19%) and Domaleo Investments (16%), a vehicle for Clare investors John O'Flaherty and Dominic Considine.

Arkphire was advised on the acquisition deal by IBI Corporate Finance, with Trilogy Technologies working with Mazars’ corporate finance team.

Completion of the acquisition is subject to approval from the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.

Photo: Paschal Naylor and Edel Creely (Pic: Peter Houlihan)