SecureCom buys Atmospheric, the Microsoft NZ Partner of the Year gone bust
A handful of staff find a lifeboat with fast-growing IT services company.
A handful of staff find a lifeboat with fast-growing IT services company.
SecureCom has bought Atmospheric, the Microsoft 2015 Cloud SMB Partner of the Year winner and 2016 finalist that went into receivership on September 16 (a liquidator is expetected to be appointed on Friday).
The sale will be officially announced later today.
Although it is small — a rival bidder tells NBR it had 31 serviced customers before going bust — Atmospheric's Partner-of-the-Year status caused embarrassment for Microsoft NZ.
Disgruntled staff, angry at not being paid for two months or more, and confused about the sudden, unexplained disappearance of Atmospheric owner and chief executive David Verschaffelt, were quick to talk to NBR.
The company had 25 staff when funds ran out and it hit the wall. Receivers from Staples Rodway dismissed all bar seven.
Now, for some, brighter times are ahead. SecureCom has offered contracts to some Atmospheric staff, director Greg Mikkelsen confirms. Five will start tomorrow.
Terms haven't been disclosed but a rival bidder told NBR he would have been willing to pay around the $1 million mark, but in the end did not put in a bid because he could not secure a guarantee over how many of the 31 customers would be included in the deal — or the option to pay according to how each of the remaining customers was valued.
Mr Mikkelsen says he understood the receiver's need for a quick, lump-sum sale to keep the business together. SecureCom was willing to pay a "clean price" with no guarantee of customer numbers because it backed itself to keep all 31 onboard, he says.
A series of meetings is under way with all 31. So far none have defected, he says.
While the receivers have yet to publish any financials, NBR understands Atmospheric has a long list of creditors and, for a company of its size, eye-popping debt. NBR also understands that questions are now being asked about how some of Atmospheric's financial practices.
Some creditors might come knocking on SecureCom's door but Mr Mikkelsen notes his company has bought customers and their contracts; as is always the case in these situations, those owed money by Atmospheric will have to deal with its receivers (who have declined comment up to this point bar noting their statutory obligation to publish a report within six weeks).
The new owner
Mr Mikkelsen, former transtasman enterprise business for Spark Digital (née Gen-i), bought a one-third stake in SecureCom last year.
He says SecureCom staff numbers have been boosted from 35 to 50 over the past year, while the company now has 120 clients with around 4000 end-users among them.
Without disclosing financials, he says the privately held company is growing at a rate of 25% a year.
As with Atmospheric, moving small to medium businesses is a key point of focus for Mr Mikkelsen's company (and, as it happens, SecureCom recently upgraded NBR's email system to the cloud, and will also move other systems online).
He says the fact both SecureCom and Atmospheric have clients running the same cloud systems, based on Microsoft's Office 365 and Azure, means there will be no customer disruption during the transition.
David Verschaffelt has not responded to NBR requests for comment.
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