Sale of Dublin-based IT Company
About the deal:
Unity Technologies IT, a leading cloud solutions provider, acquired Dublin-based IT Force, a computer services and support specialist. The deal was worth circa €4 million.
About the client:
IT Force was originally founded in 1999, and provides a variety of IT services to its customers, including IT Cloud Support, Managed IT Services, and Managed IT Security Services. The company won Deloitte Best Managed Company in 2019 and counts RSM, Pigsback.com, and Insomnia as clients.
How we helped:
IT Force was looking for an experienced advisor to negotiate a conclusion to the transaction already agreed in principle. We were extremely pleased they chose Hornblower Business Brokers and it was a pleasure working with them.
The project required us assisting them in taking a broad initial proposal through a process to finalisation of the offer, monitoring due diligence, final negotiations and financial input into the Share Purchase Agreement. This meant, among other things, ensuring the vendors had a full understanding of the deal as well as communicating the complex financial parts to the lawyers.
We were able to add significant value to the deal in a number of ways. For example, we had different views to the purchaser on the working capital to be left by the vendors in the company. As this was a real cash item for the vendors, a robust negotiation with the purchaser's advisors was ongoing right through all stages until a satisfactory conclusion was reached.
One big challenge was to understand the purchaser's valuation and structure, and to negotiate in a way that the deal would not be compromised while trying to get improvements for our clients. We were very pleased to have achieved this for IT Force.
There was a very smooth completion coordinated between Vendors, Purchasers and Funders and their lawyers in the context of a full Covid lockdown where no physical final meetings took place. The technology and video conferencing all worked as it had done right through the process (which is no surprise as both parties were technology companies).
In the end, our client achieved a sale at a satisfactory price knowing we had negotiated for them on every issue to the limits the purchasers were prepared to go.
The deal was negotiated by our Business Sales & Acquisitions Consultant in Dublin, Julian Caplin.
SOLD – October 2020
The deal was announced in the Irish Times on 30th October 2020.
If you are considering a business sale and you’ve got some questions you’d like to ask us, then please get in touch using the contact form below, or call +44 (0) 20 8090 9380.
