Comguard announces first business acquisition

Close on the heels of achieving manifold expansion by offering comprehensive distribution of enterprise solution range, Dubai headquartered value added distributor Comguard Networks, a $ 60 mn company has announced the acquisition of Converged Solution. This is Comguard India's first business acquisition in the voice and data vertical.

The business acquisition entails Comguard Network to acquire the competency knowledge, offices, distribution alliances, workforce and skills of Converged Solutions, a Bengaluru based start up IT distribution company, with about 15 employees and the last reported annual revenue of Rs 10 crore, to offer a comprehensive range of voice and data solutions.

Speaking to /The DQ Week/, Ajay Singh Chauhan, CEO, Spectrum Group said, "Converged Solution has a rich heritage, a passionate customer base and a wide product line, all of which fueled our decision to acquire the company. The Converged Solution portfolio will be merged with Comguard's distribution and evolve to include even richer user experiences and voice and data functionality. We have completed the process of acquisition on March 1, 2013. Henceforth, it will be merged into the Comguard distribution company and we have retained half the employees of Converged."

Chauhan also added, "Converged Solution is a start up firm. It was lacking in the investment to be put in sales and pre-sales and finance. Finance and executions of large projects were the major challenges. Thus, Comguard brings in the financial muscle into the company. The new merger will bring in a new vertical to our distribution portfolio, which is largely to include security solutions."

Areen Naidoo, CEO, Converged Solution and now the AVP, distribution and alliances at Comguard Networks said, "Converged Solution is completely acquired by Comguard, and all our offices in South and existing partners base are now merged with Comguard's existing offices in Delhi and Mumbai. The merger would give us lot of ammunition and scale to grow in the voice and data vertical. We have been having strong and old distribution alliances with companies like Brocade, CA Technologies and Patron Electronics. With Comguard's merger we will continue to grow our existing alliances and add 4-5 more alliances by end of this year."

Now Converged Solutions partners will start placing the order under Comguard's name, and can get more credit limit. With the organic and acquisition growth, Comguard is having 50-60 headcount. The company plans to become a 100 people company by end of this year. Post merger, Comguard business volume would touch globally $ 50-60 mn. In India, it would become Rs 100 crore company in next couple of years. Presently, Comguard is a Rs 25 crore company in India.

In addition to security and voice and data verticals, the distributor is now getting into storage and cloud verticals, either organic or inorganic way. "Presently, we have close to total 12 distribution alliances. The plan is to add another 20 new alliances by end of this year. Our plan is to become value added distributor for enterprise and government," said Chauhan.

On the partners front, Comguard has 50 partners, and will grow this count to 100. Chauhan also clarified, "We will not touch on the customers and partners side. The new vertical will contribute Rs 50 crore this year."