Air IT poised for M&A spree under new leadership

August Equity backs Nottingham-based MSP

Air IT has kicked off a buy-and-build strategy after being acquired by August Equity, with former GCI and Solar Communications boss John Whitty leading the business.

Whitty takes over the role from Todd McQuilkin, who founded the Nottingham-based business in 2005.

Speaking to CRN, Whitty (pictured, left) said that the plan is to implement an M&A strategy which will take Air IT into new regions nationally.

"I've been working with Air IT on and off for about three years and recognise that they have an excellent platform in terms of the investment they've made in people and training, the automation tools in place, and systems in the background," he said.

"They have some brilliant products that are all really suitable for the SME market, so 20 to 250 users.

"If we put that alongside an investment from private equity, we're going to be able to accelerate organically and make sure we take advantage of the product set, but then also look at the opportunity of acquiring nationally and then extending our footprint.

"We think we have everything to go and grow it nationally organically but if we do that via acquisition and embed all this investment into the existing base, we will build something of real scale."

Whitty has taken over as CEO, with current Air IT MD James Healey (pictured, right) becoming COO.

The leadership team is joined by Ian Brown as chairman, who was executive chairman at SecureData, under the ownership of August Equity, until it was sold to Orange last year. Brown also worked with Whitty at GCI.

Founder McQuilkin will stay on as non-executive director.

Air IT has a compound annual growth rate of 28 per cent over the last three years, and Whitty said it will hit sales of £9m in its current year, with double-digit EBITDA.

He added that a number of potential acquisition targets have already been identified.

"We're after other MSPs in regions that we don't currently cover that offer similar services, but if there is an opportunity to acquire a business with a niche product that we can take advantage of then we would definitely like to do that as well," he said.

"So it's businesses of a similar size addressing a similar market, but we'd like to make sure that they all benefit from our own investment so far."

Mickey Patel, partner at August Equity, which also owns acquisitive Charterhouse, said: "We are delighted to back chair Ian Brown again together with CEO John Whitty in one of the best-quality cloud managed services businesses in the UK we have seen.

"The business was acquired in an off-market deal following 18 months of developing the investment thesis and meeting with almost 50 companies in the UK. Air IT has invested heavily to create a platform that has the ability to scale rapidly across the UK while delivering outstanding customer service, in a market where SMEs often comprise a tail of customers that receive less attention than larger customers.

"After SecureData and Charterhouse, Air IT is the third investment for August in the broader managed services space. We will use the knowledge and network built over time to assist the management in creating the UK's largest SME cloud provider."