EMC bids £42 million for Conchango

EMC has launched a surprise takeover bid for consultancy firm Conchango, the latest in a long line of acquisitions for the storage company aimed at diversifying its business.

The deal, worth £42 million, values UK-based Conchango at 23.1p per share and was backed by around 80 per cent of Conchango's existing shareholders at the time the deal was announced.

EMC plans to combine Conchango with its existing Microsoft consultancy practice based out of the US, with the aim of creating a global multi-platform consultancy and services operation.

"We are thrilled to become part of EMC which gives us the platform for expansion throughout Europe and also access to the expertise and wider resources of the global EMC team," said Mike Altendorf, Conchango's co-founder and joint managing director in a statement.

"We've grown our business to be one of the leaders in the UK and the next stage in our strategy is to expand upon this success in new markets."

The acquisition of Conchango is the latest in a long line of software and services buys by EMC over the last five years, as it continues to diversify away from storage hardware alone. EMC's acquisition-driven expansion has seen it moving more into data management, virtualisation, security, networking and the lucrative services sector.

In the last two years, EMC has made high-profile acquisitions including RSA Security, Network Intelligence and Verid.

"The addition of Conchango will mark another key milestone in the evolution of EMC's rapidly growing consulting services business, significantly expanding our global capabilities to design, build and deliver tightly integrated solutions for our customers," said Howard Elias, president of EMC's Global Services and Resource Management Software Group.

"Conchango has a proven track record of delivering many of the UK's largest data integration projects using highly scalable tools and methodologies," he added.

The acquisition is expected to be completed at the end of this month.

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