Datalink (Nasdaq:DTLK), a data center solutions and services provider for Fortune 500 and mid-tier enterprises, has announced an agreement to acquire privately held Bear Data Solutions, Inc. (Bear). The acquisition of San Francisco-based Bear will quadruple Datalink’s West Coast revenue base to more than $200 million.
Bear primarily serves California-based customers from offices in San Francisco, San Jose, Irvine and San Diego. Bear had 2013 revenues of $130 million with a large percentage coming from networking products, including Cisco wireless, routing and core switches being requested by Datalink customers.
“This is an important strategic acquisition that will significantly expand our West Coast operations and give us a large new base of customers for solutions and services that are beyond the scope of Bear’s current offerings,” said Paul Lidsky, Datalink president and CEO. “As with our successful acquisitions of Incentra, Midwave and StraTech over the past five years, bringing Bear’s personnel and customers into the Datalink family will help expand our geographic reach, deepen our technical knowledge and capabilities, and accelerate our growth rate for shareholders and investors.”
Bear’s CEO Don James, his leadership team and most of Bear’s 80 employees, including 25 account executives and 17 field engineers, are expected to remain with Datalink. A joint integration team is currently developing a plan to merge operations, with most of the integration-work taking place during the fourth quarter of 2014. Datalink expects the integration to save $1 million to $2 million in 2015 through shared synergies.
