Business Technology Partners Acquires Two Smaller IT Services Organizations, Gets Close To Security VAR
IT consultant Business Technology Partners is continuing its planned roll-up of small IT organizations with the unveiling of its second and third acquisitions this year, moves that strengthen its services capabilities and brings a new CEO on board.
New York-based Business Technology Partners this week unveiled a definitive agreement to acquire the Secure IT engineering division of Secure Technology Integration, or STIGroup, a Glen Rock, N.J.-based provider of cybersecurity consulting and services.
While the deal is still being finalized, there will be a cross-investment made between the principals of companies both formalizing the relationship and creating a mutual incentive for growing both businesses, said Josh Aaron, founder and president of BTP.
The deal came together quickly, Aaron told CRN.
"It all came together very fast once we made the decision. This was possible due to the level of trust between the principals and our decade-long relationship," he said.
With the acquisition, Dominic Genzano, CEO of STIGroup, now acts as CEO of both organizations, even though the two will continue to run independently, Aaron said.
Genzano's dual CEO role stems from the terms of the acquisition under which BTP and STIGroup have cross-investments in each other, Genzano told CRN.
As a result of that deal, BTP has enlarged its IT services and managed services focus with the IT services team from STIGroup, while STIGroup now is focused exclusively on the cybersecurity business, he said.
STIGroup was founded in 2000 with a focus on cybersecurity with both the ability to identify issues and remediate them, Genzano said.
"Over time, we built an IT services organization, not just for security but also for other areas," he said. "That division over time diluted the cybersecurity message of STIGroup. Josh and I have been friends and partners for over eight years, and have referred business to each other. The intent to combine our efforts have been in the back of our minds for some time."
Just prior to the acquisition of STIGroup's IT services business, BTP also acquired the U.S.-based managed services business of PTS Consulting, a 30-plus-year-old London, England-based provider of workplace technology, data center, and managed services. That acquisition, which closed June 1, followed the acquisition late last year of Responsible Computing Solutions.
Prior to that, BTP in 2004 acquired Koetje Technologies and in 2009 acquired Advanced Micrographic Systems.
Aaron told CRN that the timing for the acquisition of STIGroup's IT services business and the bringing on of STIGroup's CEO as BTP's CEO was right given BTP's recent acquisition activity.
"We realized this was the right time to combine the various IT services groups," he said.
Going forward, BTP will partner closely with STIGroup on the security front, Aaron said. "Dom has the cybersecurity background to help solve customers' biggest challenges," he said.
The acquisitions of the STIGroup and PTS Consulting IT services business, combined with BTP's own services business, now gives the company a larger engineering team and a total of over 60 customers ranging from small law firms to some large enterprise clients, Aaron said.
"It's a nice healthy mix of clients," he said. "There's no concentration of accounts. No single client accounts for more that 7 percent of our total business."