22 December 2014
Onyx Group says its acquisition of Knowledge IT takes it one step closer to becoming a national £100 million IT support and services company, which it plans to be within five years.
The company has completed five significant takeovers since 2000 but at £10 million Knowledge IT is its most expensive purchase.
Onyx CEO Neil Stephenson (left) and George Sanger, MD at Knowledge, shake on the deal which they claim is another step towards becoming a £100m-revenue IT company.
Onyx owns five data centres and six workplace recovery facilities in the UK and claims to have a base of more than 200 customers, including high-profile brands such as DFS and Highland Spring.
It says growing demand for comprehensive IT management was a factor in the deal.
Neil Stephenson, CEO of Onyx, said: "Increasingly over the past two years, customers have been asking us to manage their entire IT infrastructure, as well as providing resilient solutions to complex cloud and hosting requirements.
"The Knowledge IT team has a great reputation for delivering these services and this deal will make the Onyx propositions and reach stronger for both sets of customers."
Onyx says it was on course to achieve a turnover of £20 million for 2014, which is a 13 per cent increase on the previous year. Now, with the takeover of Knowledge IT, it predicts turnover will increase to £30 million a year.
The total number of staff is now 170, up from 115 at Onyx prior to the deal.
Knowledge is an IT solutions and support firm, based in north-east England, which specialises in virtualisation, cloud computing and data centre services. Its clients include Newcastle United Football Club and Durham City Council.
It owns a combined facility with data hosting and workplace recovery services. Its managing director, George Sanger, has now been appointed commercial director at Onyx. He emphasises that support services was an important part of the deal.
"Onyx Group, like Knowledge IT, has an established reputation for providing outstanding customer support. We welcome the opportunity to share our expertise to help Onyx build on their achievements and grow the enlarged business."
