Claranet bolsters Latin American business with CorpFlex acquisition

Claranet has ramped up its Latin American operations through acquiring Brazilian MSP CorpFlex for an undisclosed sum.

Based in the north-western outskirts of Sao Paulo, CorpFlex is a leading provider of private cloud solutions in Brazil, claims Claranet, and also has strong capabilities in cybersecurity, data management and networking.

Its customer base consists of enterprise and corporate organisations in verticals including healthcare, transportation, industry, services and agriculture.

CorpFlex holds two gold-level certifications with Microsoft in Datacentre and Data Platform, according to its website, as well as a Gold-level badge with network security vendor Fortinet.

UK-based Claranet now has a team of 200 staff in Brazil, according to António Miguel Ferreira, who leads Claranet's business across Spain, Portugal and Latin America.

He said that his business unit has grown revenues by more than 800 per cent over the last four years to reach €128m in annual revenues.

Claranet first entered the Brazilian and Latin American market in 2017 with its acquisition of AWS partner CredibiliT Tecnologia.

At the time, Claranet said it held ambitions to become the leading cloud services provider in Brazil.

It now claims to serve major Brazilian organisations such as aerospace company Embraer and media group TV Globo.

Claranet's Iberian business was given a huge lift after it acquired €95m-revenue Portuguese player ITEN in 2017, propelling it to become the third largest IT services firm in the country behind IBM and local champion NovaBase.

"Now is the time to make the same impact in Brazil," said Ferreira.

"Now we are ready to expand and take advantage of such an important global market. CorpFlex is our first big investment in Brazil, expanding its potential in line with some of our biggest European country operations.

"We now have a team of over 200 in Brazil offering fantastic technical support and service management capabilities to our customers. Looking to the future, we are also actively reviewing additional opportunities to grow organically and by further acquisitions."

Claranet's last available accounts are for its full-year 2018, which show revenues of £321.6m - up 49 per cent year on year - and adjusted EBITDA of £50m, up 29 per cent.

The hybrid cloud MSP made a string of acquisitions between 2016 and 2018 as it looked to grow its European footprint. It's pace of M&A began to slow after 2018 as the firm turned to organic expansion in the shape of a new office in France, Nantes.

Commenting on the latest buyout in Brazil, CEO Charles Nasser said: "Our decision to combine businesses has focused on enhancing the value we deliver to our customers, resulting in sustainable organic growth. A talented team joining the Claranet Group of Companies means we can continue to develop our portfolio and offer the technologies, platforms, and skills that matter most to our customers."

"We are delighted to welcome the Corpflex team to the Claranet family and look forward to working together in growing our capabilities and presence in Brazil."

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• Topics
• Managed Service Provider (MSP)
• Solution Provider
• MSP CorpFlex
• Sao Paulo
• Brazil
• Claranet
• Microsoft
• Portugal
• Spain
• CredibiliT Tecnologia
• TV Globo
• ITEN
• MSP
• Charles Nasser