The say channel consolidation is a bad thing, but the merger between Navantis Inc. and Legend Corp. was anything but.
The interesting part of this business story is that the deal may have been set a decade prior when John Kvasnic, founder and CEO of Navantis, saw his old office struck by lightening. The company was working feverishly on many projects that were nearing completion.
Kvasnic called Andy Papadopoulos, founder of Legend, and he says Papadopoulos didn’t hesitate. He and his team at Legend worked 46-hours straight to get Navantis operational again, and never issued a bill to Kvasnic.
“I hold Andy in very high regard and we see this merger as complimentary,” Kvasnic said.
The combined companies are operating under the Navantis name and will be headquartered in Toronto.
Both solution providers have made business bets on Microsoft technology, and Kvasnic believes the new company will move up CDN’s Top 100 rankings next year to between $20 to $25 million.
“I watched John (and his partner Jason Martin) build a great business with Microsoft over the years. We‘ve worked on projects together in the past and we saw the synergies with clients,” said Papadopoulos.
Legend has been approached several times about mergers and acquisitions and for Papadopoulos it was never about the money and more about fit.