ePlus Acquires Assets Of Manchester Technologies In Supply Chain Strategy

Expanding the reach of its enterprise cost management (eECM) strategy, ePlus on Tuesday said it purchased select assets of Manchester Technologies in a $5.2 million deal.

Under the deal, ePlus acquired Manchester's IT fulfillment, professional services, software development and consulting services businesses. The move reflects ePlus' strategy to compete with firms such as Automatic Data Processing (ADP) in the market for "turnkey supply chain solutions," said Kley Parkhurst, senior vice president at Herndon, Va.-based ePlus.

Through the acquisition, ePlus gets more firepower on the professional services front; an expanded regional touch via Manchester's offices in New York, southern Florida and the Baltimore area; and new revenue sources from customer lists and contracts gleaned as part of the deal, Parkhurst said.

"Manchester is mostly a product reseller, though they offer some services. What we were looking for [with the purchase] was its customer base and locations, and also our ability to cross-sell ePlus services," Parkhurst said.

Also with the deal, ePlus acquired Manchester Software, a Rochester, N.Y.-based division of Manchester Technologies that offers enterprise software development and operations consulting. Manchester Software's biggest customer is Paychex, a Rochester-based payroll service company, Parkhurst said.

Parkhurst declined to specify how the purchase was valued in terms of potential service revenue vs. product revenue. The deal left Manchester Technologies with its display technology business unit.

About 150 Manchester employees became ePlus employees as of the transaction's close date. Customers of the Manchester units acquired by ePlus should notice no difference in the representatives they deal with, Parkhurst said, adding that those business units were integrated into ePlus' transaction network almost immediately.

"About two years ago, we entered into a project to consolidate [ePlus'] operations and centralize purchasing, accounting, etc., to make it efficient enough to buy a company and integrate it the next day," Parkhurst said.

EPlus aims to grow its eECM supply chain solution business to the level of ADP or IBM, and to that end more acquisitions are likely, Parkhurst said. "We are looking for customers we can cross-sell to, geographic companies where there is no overlap and services we don't provide," he said.

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