Claranet ups ante in acquisition game with Ardenta buy

Pan-European managed service provider Claranet has acquired UK-based IT services provider Ardenta.

Earlier this month, Claranet acquired Diademys, in a move that will significantly expand the company’s hosting and cloud services reach in France.

Ardenta specialises in the management of e-commerce systems, with a particular expertise in high-volume transactional database management.

This expertise will complement Claranet’s growing application management capabilities, and its ability to support companies on-premise, through Claranet’s cloud or on managed public cloud services.

Established in 2001, the Surrey-based company has annualised revenues of £6 million. While Ardenta works with a wide range of sectors, it has a particular focus on media and e-gaming, and counts the BBC, ITV, Ladbrokes and William Hill among its customers.

The company will become part of the Claranet Group of companies, and Ardenta’s co-founders, Neil Truby and Scott Hanson, will work alongside Claranet’s senior management team to integrate the business and help foster continued growth.

Michel Robert (pictured), Claranet UK’s managing director, said: “Ardenta’s experience with e-commerce systems and database management will complement our in-house expertise, leading to new and improved services for our customers.

This acquisition [for an undisclosed sum] represents the latest in a line of strategically-important deals that we’ve made over the past two years across Europe.”

The deal means the expanded Claranet Group now has annualised revenues of £200 million, over 1,200 staff and over 5,700 customers in the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal.

@AntonySavvas