In the early days of 2013, the storage market is already consolidating.
Imation Corporation today announced the acquisition of privately held Nexsan Corporation in a deal valued at $120 million. The deal includes a cash payment of $105 million and $15 million worth of Imation common shares.
As part of the deal, approximately 200 Nexsan employees in the U.S., U.K. and Canada are joining Imation. The full details on how Nexsan will be integrated into Imation will be determined during the first quarter of 2013.
By acquiring Nexsan, Imation adds a roster of 11,000 customers and a business that generated $82 million in revenue during 2011.
“Imation’s acquisition of Nexsan is an exciting next step in our strategic transformation, which includes investing in growth platforms in data storage and security solutions, where we are targeting markets with strong growth rates,” said Mark Lucas, president and CEO of Imation in a statement.
Lucas added that Imation strategy in 2013 includes focusing on the SMB market, which is where the Nexsan technology will fit in.
Nexsan was busy during 2012 accelerating its mid-market storage portfolio with new SSD storage capabilities. In March, Nexsan enhanced its FASTier caching layer which includes DRAM modules working alongside Solid State Drives.
“Imation provides us the scale and global footprint to expand our business, while still keeping intact our award winning partner program, our strong management team and employees, and our innovative products and roadmap,” Philip Black, CEO of Nexsan, said in a statement.
Black will be among the 200 Nexsan employees that are now set to become part of Imation.
“Nexsan is a successful company that is addressing some of today’s fastest growing trends in storage, and we are pleased that its management team, including CEO Philip Black, will join Imation,” Lucas stated. “The combination of Nexsan’s products, technologies, and talented teams with Imation’s global reach and infrastructure will be an excellent accelerator for our growth strategy in storage solutions.”
Imation recently expanded its storage offering into the cloud. The Imation ONE and Imation PRO backup services were announced in mid-December as new solution for cloud based desktop and server backup.
Imation is set to report its fourth quarter fiscal 2012 financial results on February 13th, at which point additional detail on the Nexsan technology is likely to be revealed. Imation’s third quarter results were not all that impressive. The company reported a third quarter year-over-year revenue decline of 19.6 percent.