Solution Provider Cumberland Group Gets Management Buyout

‘We’re not interested in making major changes to our strategy. For the last two to three years, the core management team in the management buyout has been handling the business. The management buyout lets us focus on what we do really well, and lets the co-founders exit with a number that works for them,’ says Aaron Meyers, Cumberland Group’s managing director of strategy and services.

The core management team of Cumberland Group this week said it has acquired the data-centric technology services solution provider in a move aimed at ensuring the company and its clients that it will not easily be subject to being acquired.

The management team, led by Joe Corbett, the company’s president and chief operating officer and Aaron Meyers (pictured), managing director of strategy and services, purchased the Atlanta-based company from its co-founders Ken Snuggs and Patrick Hiller for an undisclosed sum, Meyers told CRN.

The channel is going through a period of consolidation, particularly among solution providers who provide ‘white-glove service,’ Aaron Meyers told CRN.

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Customers are increasingly turning to solution providers like Cumberland Group, which is a member of CRN’s 2021 Tech Elite 250 list of solution providers, because such companies are not bogged down with consolidation, he said.

“We bought the company from its co-founders so we can be a management consultant, systems integrator, and value-added reseller and provide white-glove service without customers worrying about what will happen if we get bought by someone else,” he said.

That stability stems from the fact that the core management team has no interest in wanting to sell the business, Meyers said.

“This management buyout process started looking at money where is the money,” he said. “We saw there was money in private equity. But we wanted to build a business focused on customers, employees, and our strategy.”

Cumberland Group is cash flow positive, net income generating, and profitable,” Meyers said. “We have no need to go and look elsewhere for funding. We’ve been the recipient of offers to acquire us over the last few years. We’ve entertained those offers, and didn’t reject them outright. But we look at what an acquisition might do to disrupt or dilute the value of what we do for customers and team members.”

That is not to say Cumberland Group would never consider getting acquired, Meyers said.

“We’re not fools,” he said. “We won’t say no for the sake of saying no. We just don’t want to be in a position where we need to take a deal.”

The management buyout included the participation of just over a dozen of the solution provider’s management staff, Meyers said.

Looking ahead, Cumberland Group will be doubling down on and re-emphasizing what the solution provider does really well, Meyers said.

“We’re not interested in making major changes to our strategy,” he said. “For the last two to three years, the core management team in the management buyout has been handling the business. The management buyout lets us focus on what we do really well, and lets the co-founders exit with a number that works for them.”