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Lumenate also has an advanced security business, which ICI had not yet developed, he said.
Before the merger with ICI, Lumenate had been growing in part via acquisitions.
Lumenate last Spring acquired Troubadour, a Houston-based solution provider with a primary focus on networking, infrastructure and security.
Lumenate in 2012 also acquired security specialist ANI Direct and data center solution provider International Computerware.
Lumenate's Shepard said he did not want ICI to be acquired or to acquire someone else. Instead, he said he was looking for something similar in size that could complement its weakness, which he said is on the finance and management side.
"I'm good at customer services and at taking a customer problem and turning it into a solution," he said. "I can build a brand and a profitable business. My other half needs strength in management and finance. I needed to find a way to go to the next level."
That way came via a friend of over 19 years who told Shepard about Lumenate, which was also looking for a way to grow.
That introduction led to a meeting last Fall between Shepard and Reagan Dixon, president of Lumenate, where the two very quickly realized their companies could grow more quickly as one.
"The meeting was like a blind data where you walk away thinking, 'I'm going to marry this person,'" Shepard said.
The channel seems to be going through a new wave of mergers and acquisitions activity.
Other recent deals include the October acquisition of Computex by Stratos, an investment firm looking to build a national IT solution provider through acquisitions, along with this month's acquisition of Minnesota-based St. Croix Solutions by Edmond, Okla.-based Pinnacle Business Systems.
PUBLISHED JAN. 14, 2013
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