Make A Deal, Get Acquired

The forum, run by the IT M&A Exchange, San Ramon, Calif., is aimed at helping systems integrators create some cash liquidity as an alternative to taking a company public. The IT M&A Exchange is a partner of CMP Media, which publishes CRN.

Among buyers' most popular companies are integrators specializing in wireless and computer-telephony integration (CTI), says William Keiper, president of the IT M&A Exchange. Companies looking to make deals include a Northern California telecommunications service provider with $2.6 million in sales, growing at a rate of 50 percent per year; a Southeast convergence/telephony integrator with $4.4 million in sales, focusing on small and midsize businesses; and a Texas-based integrator specializing in wireless and realtime applications.

Omar Rizvi, chairman of Origin Investment Group, a Santa Monica, Calif., venture capital company that has attended the forum as a buyer, says the event allows buyers to meet with up to 40 companies in two days of meetings. It also provides an opportunity for integrators that have hit a growth glass ceiling to make a deal for continued growth, says Rizvi.

In the midst of the dot-com shakeout, systems integrators are finding themselves more highly valued in the market than Web builders, Rizvi says. "The integrators are much more highly valued because they still offer a profitable stream of ready cash flow and are capable of adapting and implementing new digital strategies among their integration, deployment and consulting services," he says.