VAR 500 M&A: Presidio Buying BlueWater Communications
Presidio is set to acquire BlueWater Communications Group — uniting two VAR 500 companies to aggressively focus on managed services, IT services and cloud services across North America. As part of the deal, BlueWater CEO Bob Cagnazzi will shift into the Presidio CEO post, The VAR Guy has learned.
Reached by phone, Cagnazzi confirmed the deal today. Chatter about the potential combo had reached The VAR Guy’s inbox from several trusted sources on Feb. 26. An official announcement is expected sometime this week.
The Presidio-BlueWater deal combines two channel leaders:
- Presidio employs 2,000 IT professionals and has delivered sustained double-digit growth for 15 years. Presidio has acquired Networked Information Systems LLC, Solarcom Holdings, Inc., Coleman Technologies, Inc. and INX, Inc.
- BlueWater has been one of Cisco’s fastest-growing channel partners in recent years, focusing like a laser on secure IP networks that leverage unified communications.
More recently, both Presidio and BlueWater have also increased their respective focuses on managed services. Cagnazzi described BlueWater’s managed services network operations center (NOC) — called BLUE — in this FastChat video from November 2009:
The combined company will be known as Presidio but it sounds like the BlueWater brand will also stick around for a few months. The VAR Guy is running to a flight but will be sure to follow-up this week with deeper analysis.
