Lekerman on lookout for growth opportunities

Eurodata co-founder has big plans for latest venture TIGL, where he led a buyout of the company last month

Channel veteran Des Lekerman is keeping his eye out for the next acquisition opportunity as he plots aggressive growth for his channel comeback venture.

Last week he led a seven-figure buyout of managed services players The Internet Group Ltd (TIGL), with former Eurodata sales director George Georgiou, ex-Ultima consulting chief Mark Moss and Internet Group founder Adam Maurice all holding stakes in the business.

Lekerman (pictured), was co-founder of Microsoft specialist Eurodata in the early nineties, which was sold to rival Trinity Expert Systems for an undisclosed sum in June 2011. He will now take on the title of chief executive of TIGL.

Speaking to CRN, Lekerman said: “TIGL does not sell a lot of kit, in fact 80 per cent of the business is contracted. It is a fantastic managed services business. While we were in negotiations it achieved a four-star Service Desk International (SDI) rating, which is a huge achievement.”

He said growth is the name of the game now.

“I have three good guys on the team and we will look to build the company – adding to the existing cloud platform, build our own MPLS network and build on relationships with vendors such as Microsoft to make sure they take us seriously. We want to build up accreditations and we are going to bolster and bring on sales and marketing people. We want more presence in the market.”

He also said further acquisitions were on the cards as the firm has some solid would-be backers.

“While I was out looking for the right company to invest in, I did the private equity circuit and have several of them interested in investing in our next acquisition. We have some time to sort out what we already have here in TIGL, but we will be ready for further acquisiitons and will be looking to do bolt-ons. We have already had some names mentioned to us, but of course it has to be the right fit.”