Adept's presence in the London and south east region has been strengthened by the acquisition of vendor independent IT services provider Shift F7 Group and its subsidiaries for £5m.
For the year ended 31st May 2018 Dorking-based Shift F7 reported 5m turnover. The deal boosts Adept's revenues by 10% to circa £54m and depending on the trading performance of Shift F7 in the year post-acquisition a further £2.9m may be payable in cash.
Shift F7 was founded in 1995 and provides IT support services and technology solutions to 200 mid-market customers. Its key suppliers include Citrix, Microsoft, HP, Cisco, Ericsson LG and VMWare. And the company operates hosted platform environments in London Docklands and Heathrow.
The acquisition is a significant boost to Adept's IT capabilities and customer base, bringing expertise in outsourced managed IT and telecoms solutions, including IT support, hosted IT, cyber security, data connectivity and next generation IP telephony services.
The companies are well known to each other having collaborated on projects over a ten year period during which both organisations displayed an appetite for building recurring margin while pursuing capital asset light strategies that are highly cash generative.
Approximately 75% of Shift F7’s gross margin is generated from recurring products and services.
Shift F7's Dorking premises will be retained along with the senior management team responsible for strategy, technology development and general business operations.
Adept CEO Ian Fishwick (pictured) commented: “Shift F7 enhances our market position in IT, particularly in London, and complements Adept's acquisition of OurIT in February 2017 which also focused on London and south east commercial customers.
"Following the Shift F7 acquisition more than 70% of Adept's revenue will be generated from managed services including IT support, unified communications and data networks."