Ergo has announced the acquisition of IT services peer Asystec to create the largest privately-owned Irish IT services company in the country, with over 500 IT professionals across Ireland, the UK and North America.
Ergo CEO Paul McCann stated: “This is a transformative deal for the Irish market, the coming together of complementary skills and services from two giants of the Irish IT sector. We welcome Asystec onboard, knowing that natural synergies in our customer-centric focus will make for a perfect cultural as well as technical fit.”
McCann added that the acquisition aligns with Ergo’s strategy to build on public, private and hybrid cloud capabilities.
Asystec, established in Limerick in 2010, is an Amazon Web Services specialist that had turnover of €25m in the year to January 2021. Operating profit in 2020/21 was €1.3m, up from €720,000 the year before.
Ergo described the transaction terms as a ‘€25m deal’, and it’s subject to CCPC approval.
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Asystec, with 45 people on the payroll, also has expertise in VMware and Dell EMC storage. “By targeting an acquisition that complements existing expertise in Microsoft and HP technologies, Ergo is scaling up and expanding its role as an enterprise-class service provider of cloud and managed services,” said McCann.
Ergo believes that new propositions around the orchestration of public and private clouds will become a market differentiator, enabling organisations to optimise a hybrid combination of services using different technology stacks.
According to McCann, combined Ergo/Asystec revenue will be in excess of €150m in 2022, and the ambition is scale up to c.€250m over the next three to five years.
Les Byrne (48), co-founder and managing director of Asystec, commented: “We are hugely excited to be taking our business on the next stage of its journey, becoming part of Ergo at such a pivotal moment in the evolution of the IT services sector. Together we will be able to map and deliver future-proof IT strategies for fast-changing markets, creating new opportunities for our customers and our people.”
Les Byrne will be joining the board of Ergo along with Asystec sales director Aonghus O'Neill.
Asystec's latest accounts filing discloses that co-founder Brendan McPhillips exited the Asystec Ltd board in March 2021 after the company acquired c.90% of his shareholding in the parent company. As of July 2021, Les Byrne owned 63% of the venture and Aonghus O'Neill (44) owned 32%.
Through 2019, the three director/shareholders shared €1.5m in dividends.
Paul McCann, who took over the role of Ergo CEO in September 2021, added: “The country is on the cusp of a period of economic growth and I want to make sure that Ergo is part of it. Supplementing our leading-edge technology with Asystec’s, we believe we have the best IT services portfolio in the country and can be a key enabler, helping other businesses to grow and prosper,” he said.
Asystec is Ergo’s fourth acquisition since 2010. The first was CDSoft, followed by iSite in 2015, which expanded its CRM practice. The next year saw Micromail brought into the group, one of the largest Microsoft Licensing Solutions Providers in Ireland.
Photo: Paul McCann (right) and Les Byrne. (Pic: Shane O'Neill/Coalesce)
