MBO for Zycko

Zycko, pan-European VAD of IT solutions, announces a management buyout.

Group managing director Nick Moglia, sales and marketing director David Galton-Fenzi, and finance director Ken Wood, have acquired the majority share in the business from founder, Rory Sweet.

Originally launched in 1999 from a single office, Zycko now has an annual turnover of around £120m, with 13 offices across 4 continents. Zycko is privately held and has been profitable since inception in 1999.

The distributor was conceived as a specialist in networking accessories and infrastructure products, but has since expanded to become an expert in networking, storage, data centres, virtualisation, and voice and video, providing optimisation and efficiency solutions to resellers and managed service providers.

Zycko cultivates strong working relationships with a host of vendor partners, and has recently won several industry awards, including EMEA Distributor of the Year 2010 from videoconferencing specialist LifeSize, and Distribution Partner of the Year 2010 for Northern Europe from WAN optimisation company Riverbed.

Partner base includes also Aastra, Asigra, Eaton, ExaGrid, FalconStor, Force10 Networks, Hitachi Data Systems, Huawei Symantec, Isilon, Meru Networks, PowerDsine, ProLabs, Quest Software, SGI, Snom, SmartOptics, Spectra Logic, Talari, USystems, Vyatta and Xsigo.

Nick Moglia Zycko’s group managing director, comments: "Helping to drive Zycko’s success over the last decade has been a great experience. We are very much looking forward to the next phase in the company’s development as we deliver even more growth. This will be achieved through a combination of vendor expansion, and further overseas offices, strengthening our position as a pan-European value-added distributor."

David Galton-Fenzi group sales and marketing director, adds: "Any successful channel business model must take into account the needs of the customer, and aim to provide a value-added service based on knowledge, education and sound investment; this will be a continued strategy as we take the business forward. We set ourselves apart by uncovering disruptive technologies and introducing them to the channel, in order to give our resellers an edge in a competitive marketplace. The team we’ve built over the years allows us to do this, and is ultimately why I believe we can justify our position as Europe’s leading-edge disruptive distributor."

Rory Sweet, a serial technology entrepreneur who previously founded and sold RBR Networks and MessageLabs, will remain on the board as a non-executive director.

Zycko management was advised by Deloitte LLP’s Bristol office corporate finance team, headed by Martyn Gregory.