Lightview Capital Buys Buchanan Technologies As More MSPs See Private Equity Interest

‘We chose Lightview because of their deep MSP sector knowledge, shared values and a strong common vision for our growth,’ says James Buchanan, CEO and founder of Buchanan Technologies.

A solution provider with more than 500 employees and offices in the U.S. and Canada was purchased by a private equity company as the wave of consolidation that has hit the MSP market rolls on.

Buchanan Technologies—No. 417 on the 2019 CRN 2019 Solution Provider 500—is based in Grapevine, Texas, and has its Canadian headquarters is in Mississauga, Ontario. It was purchased by Lightview Capital, a New Jersey company founded in 2012 that works in the midmarket space.

“We chose Lightview because of their deep MSP sector knowledge, shared values and a strong common vision for our growth,” James Buchanan, CEO and founder of Buchanan Technologies, said in a statement.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

[Related: 5 Tips For Attracting Private Equity Investment In Your MSP]

The MSP was named to the Elite 150 in the 2019 CRN MSP 500 and has won Microsoft Business Productivity Innovation and HDI Pinnacle of Excellence awards.

“It’s a great company,” Seth Collins, managing director and head of martinwolf’s LMM Group, a leading M&A firm serving the midmarket IT industry that represented Buchanan in the transaction, told CRN. “It’s been in business more than 30 years. It has a long-standing customer base, global reach and just a lot of upside potential. With the right partner and the right culture, it’s a one-and-one- equals-nine type thing.”

Buchanan offers cloud services, digital transformation, managed services, support operations, service desk, professional services, on-site field service and technology consulting. Lightview has said it will be providing both incremental resources and capital that will allow Buchanan to continue its expansion and better serve customers.

“Buchanan’s North American presence, scale and reputation as a leading managed IT service provider is a strong platform for continued expansion. The MSP sector is an attractive area for investment. We’ve worked with the Buchanan team for over a year and are excited to partner with an organization that is focused on growing and delivering hiqh-quality, multifaceted IT solutions and services to their customer base,” said Rich Erickson, co-founder and managing director of Lightview Capital, in a statement.

The deal for Buchanan is just the latest in a wave of solution provider/MSP acquisitions.

Last month, private equity group Pensare Acquisition agreed to buy Houston-based solution provider Computex Technology Solutions for $65 million in a move that Computex CEO Sam Haffar said will open the door to “grow exponentially.”

“It’s very exciting to do this deal. We’re not getting acquired by a company that is going to change who we are,” Haffar told CRN at the time. “It’s a financial transaction that maintains our identity and maintains our management team and just gives us the ability to grow exponentially.”

Haffar said in today’s market, consolidation is becoming table stakes for companies that want to stay ahead. Computex—No. 117 on the 2019 CRN Solution Provider 500—said that it had recently achieved Cisco Gold Quad Master status, a designation that fewer than 10 companies in the world have been awarded.

Then last week, London-based private equity firm BC Partners announced its plans to purchase Presidio for $2.1 billion, just two and a half years after the Cisco solution provider powerhouse completed its initial public offering.

Meanwhile, New York-based Presidio, No. 23 on the 2019 CRN Solution Provider 500, and its shareholders last week agreed to be purchased for $16 per share, which represents a 21.3 percent increase over the company's closing stock price last Tuesday of $13.19 per share. Presidio's stock hasn't traded above $16 per share since March.