M&A Roundup: Flex Expands in California; Marco Obtains Customer Base; SBS Acquires Select Assets

Sometimes, a book of business or select assets are all that’s needed in a deal, and this week yielded a pair of examples of such transactions—one from the dealer side, the other involving a direct division. A third deal involved the expansion of a growing buy-in platform.

Just beating the deadline this week is Flex Technology Group (FTG). Oval Partners, the San Francisco-based, multifamily office private equity firm behind FTG, today announced a new partnership with CBE Office Solutions, a premier office technology provider based in Southern California.

CBE Office Solutions was founded in 1993 by Tarek Hafiz in Irvine, California, and currently serves Orange, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and Riverside counties.  In addition to the Irvine corporate headquarters, CBE has branch operations in Torrance, City of Industry, Valencia and Ontario. CBE has aggressively grown their market share and offerings, today representing a single-source solution for businesses by providing document management, managed print services and managed network services, which include 24/7 network support, software and data security solutions. CBE represents products manufactured by Sharp, Canon, Ricoh, HP and FP Mailing Solutions.

Frank Gaspari, Flex Technology Group

“We’re excited to welcome CBE Office Solutions to the Flex Technology Group as we execute on our strategy of a national footprint and aggressive market share expansion,” states Frank Gaspari, CEO of Flex Technology Group.  “Over the last 26 years, Tarek and his team have built an impressive company with amazing organic growth and a great corporate culture. CBE and their 175 employees will operate as a core company within FTG. This partnership further fuels our momentum towards becoming the largest office technology provider in the nation.”

Tarek Hafiz, CBE Office Solutions

“This partnership with Flex Technology Group is significant for us because it allows CBE to expand our services, accelerate our growth initiatives, and provides exciting career opportunities for our talented employees,” said Tarek Hafiz, president of CBE Office Solutions. “Being part of the FTG platform, we can now leverage the many resources of a national office technology company to aggressively grow our business and improve our clients experience with CBE.”

Flex Technology Group has expanded rapidly since 2016. Its portfolio of office technology companies now includes 15 partner dealerships generating over $325 million in annual revenues and serves over 60,000 customers nationwide. This recent partnership with CBE further represents FTG’s aggressive growth strategy into new markets, while continuing to focus on broadening its presence in existing markets with national managed print services, production print offerings, and professional software/workflow solutions.

CBE’s executive team will remain in their leadership roles to ensure the company’s continued success in serving its employees, customers, and community. Hafiz will be an equity holder in FlexPrint LLC.

Marco, a leading technology services provider in the United States, announced today its acquisition of the customer base of Executive Technologies, a copier/printer and IT services company located in Iowa.

Marco’s sales and service team will continue to serve and support Executive Technologies’ clients from its current locations in Sioux City, Mason City and Des Moines. The company has six locations throughout Iowa.

Jeff Gau, Marco

“We have been serving the state of Iowa for the past six years,” said Marco CEO Jeff Gau. “We look forward to satisfying our new clients from Executive Technologies’ and expanding on the services we can offer them.”

This is Marco’s tenth acquisition in the past two years. Earlier this year, the company purchased Accent Business Solutions and Enterprise Systems Group (ESG) located in Wisconsin. Marco has over 1,400 employees and serves 35,000 clients from its 61 locations throughout the United States.

“We are excited for Marco to be able to serve our customers,” said Kevin Grosvenor, owner of Executive Technologies. “They are a high performing company that is committed to excellence and outstanding customer service.”

Meanwhile, Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America’s (Sharp) direct sales division, Sharp Business Systems (SBS), announced that it has acquired the assets of select locations of Texas Document Solutions, successfully expanding its direct sales operations within the state of Texas.

Texas Document Solutions has a long history selling Sharp multifunction printers (MFPs) and accessories. With the acquisition, Sharp has complemented its existing Dallas and Houston direct operations with the expansion to the Austin, Fort Worth and San Antonio markets. Moving forward, Sharp’s newest customers will have direct access to Sharp’s award-winning line of advanced office products and solutions including MFPs, display products and applications to streamline office workflow. Employees from the purchased locations have been invited to join Sharp where they will be able to leverage all of the excellent benefits that come with joining a multinational company.

Anthony Sci, Sharp Business Systems

“We are extremely pleased to welcome our newest members to the Sharp Business Systems team,” said Anthony Sci, senior vice president of Sharp Business Systems. “This is an outstanding team of industry experts with extensive client knowledge who will be able to provide their customers with Sharp’s leading edge office solutions.”

Texas Document Solutions will retain its other locations in Waco, Lufkin, Tyler and Bryan under the current leadership of owner Randy Davidson.