Expereo and Wavenet hit acquisition trail

Managed network provider Expereo has kept the summer consolidation trend going with a move to pick up software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) and secure access service edge (SASE) player Breeze Networks.

The deal, the terms of which were not disclosed, gives Expereo the chance to grow the business and add more expertise around areas of the networking market that are exercising strong growth.

The firm also signalled its intention to continue to use acquisition as a strategy to support growth with the backing of majority investor Vitruvian Partners and minority investor Apax Partners SAS.

Breeze Networks is a managed service provider with SD-WAN/SASE expertise that is attractive and Expereo made it clear that it was protecting that knowledge and Matthew Lea, CTO of Breeze Networks, would be coming in as technical portfolio lead, spearheading plans for its SD-WAN/SASE practice.

“This acquisition comes at an exciting time, as we expand our SD-WAN services to address the growing need for agile, cost-effective cloud access and global network solutions in the market,” said Irwin Fouwels, CEO of Expereo.

“With our shared vision to simplify global connectivity and provide world-class customer experience, the expertise of the team of professionals behind Breeze Networks will contribute great value as we join forces.”

George Cowan, managing director of Breeze Networks, said his firm was entering into a deal with a known entity and the move would benefit staff and customers.

“Having recently worked with Expereo on a global deployment for one of our customers, we witnessed first-hand the shared values of both companies and commitment to providing excellence in delivery and customer service,” he said. “We are excited about joining the Expereo family and are certain that the global reach and scale of Expereo will be a benefit to all of our stakeholders.”

Elsewhere in the channel, Solihull-based Wavenet announced the acquisition of OGL Computer Support Holdings and its two subsidiaries, OGL Computer Support and CyberGuard Technologies.

The deal will see Wavenet become one of the UK’s major telecoms and technology players with the ability to offer a security operations centre, cyber protection and cloud services.

Philip Grannum, chief commercial officer at Wavenet, said: “The integration of the products and services will significantly enhance our opportunities to serve our customers. An increasing amount of organisations are outsourcing their IT requirements from infrastructure management to security and monitoring, simply because it is more cost and resource efficient than keeping it in-house.

“This acquisition is in line with our business growth strategy that also includes organic growth, partnerships and product expansion.”

The move gives the OGL Software division the opportunity to break away from the group to become an independent entity focusing on its enterprise resource planning (ERP) business.

“OGL Software is now one of the leading ERP solutions for stockists, distributors and wholesalers across the UK, and following the official launch of our new product, Profit4, in January 2021, the software company has been experiencing huge success,” said Sharon Moreno, head of operations at OGL Software. “We have ambitious growth plans to further secure our position in the market and this new independence will give us the space and opportunity to really focus on our core business.”