Financial Information ($USD)

• Not Disclosed

Transaction Details

• NWN Corporation, a leading Cloud Communications Service Provider (CCSP), announced yesterday that it will acquire fellow solutions provider Carousel Industries. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

• New State Capital Partners, majority stakeholder of NWN since 2015, is backing the transaction which will form a combined company called NWN Carousel.

• The pairing of the two New England-based solution providers will deliver an estimated $1 billion run-rate revenue in 2021. Both companies ranked among the largest solutions providers in the United States before this transaction, and now the combined business will service more than 6,000 customers with over 1,400 employees.

• NWN CEO Jim Sullivan will serve as the top executive for NWN Carousel. Carousel co-founder and CEO Jeff Gardner will hold a seat on the board of the combined entity, while co-founder and CRO Jim Marsh will become CRO of the combined entity.

martinwolf Analysis

• Making an Exit: Early on in its history, Carousel competed with a collection of Avaya-centric VARs like Shared Tech, Cross Telecom, SPS and ConvergeOne. Since then, its peers have successfully received investments from leading Private Equity firms, combined, been acquired by strategics like Arrow Electronics (NYSE: ARW), and even gone public.

• Vendor Compatibility: Following Avaya’s downturn, the window enjoyed by Carousel’s peers closed and Carousel was forced to invest heavily in Cisco and is today a Cisco Gold Partner. Its combination with NWN, which holds strategic relationships with HP, NetApp, EMC, Intel and VMware, completes its transition from Avaya shop to broad, contemporary solution provider

• Sizeable Growth: This is the latest mega-deal in the solutions provider space, which creates “national scale” for the two firms to attack the estimated $70 billion market. The combination of resources will result in representation all over the country, including California, Florida, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Rhode Island.

• History of Acquisitions: Both companies boast significant acquisition history. Carousel has made 10 acquisitions since its founding with the most recent being the 2016 addition of Atrion. Since 2005, NWN has acquired five other IT companies.

For more information about this transaction, click here to read the press release from NWN Corp.

martinwolf was not the advisor in this transaction.