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Best Buy Sells MSP mindSHIFT to Ricoh

One of the largest managed services providers in the United States, mindSHIFT Technologies Inc., has passed hands again.

Ricoh, the Tokyo-based office equipment, printer and document management giant, on Tuesday announced an agreement to purchase mindSHIFT from Best Buy Co Inc. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed; Best Buy paid $167 million to buy mindSHIFT exactly two years ago. 

For Ricoh, the move marks an expansion of the company's services efforts. MindSHIFT brings 650 employees and 6,900 SMB clients to Ricoh.

"With the addition of these highly skilled engineering and customer-facing resources to our existing services organization, Ricoh can now offer a greatly enhanced range of services for its customers," said Martin Brodigan, chairman and CEO of Ricoh Americas Corporation, in a statement.

For Best Buy, the move represents a divestiture of efforts to provide services in addition to equipment to small businesses. The company retains Geek Squad, which it acquired in 2002, but has scaled back on a Best Buy for Business effort from the mid-2000s that was originally an aggressive move into the SMB market.

During Best Buy's period of ownership, mindSHIFT increased its client base by about 28 percent and its headcount by about 30 percent.

Meanwhile, as Best Buy did, Ricoh plans to leave mindSHIFT to operate with its current name, management team and offices. Those locations include Austin; Boston; Chicago; Dallas; Houston; Long Island; Minneapolis; Morrisville, N.C.; New York City; Philadelphia; San Antonio; and Washington, D.C.

The deal is expected to close in February.

Posted by Scott Bekker on January 21, 2014


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