Citizens M&A Advisory served as the exclusive financial advisor to Candid Partners, a leading tech-enabled, multi-cloud consulting firm, on its sale to McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm.
Founded in 2013 in Atlanta, Candid is the largest independent dedicated cloud consulting firm in the United States. The company has deep, technical expertise across Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform. Candid delivers cloud strategy, enterprise cloud migration, cloud native architecture and DevOps-as-a-Service solutions to Fortune 500 companies and large enterprises. To help its clients securely migrate to the cloud, Candid developed MatterTM, a proprietary and sophisticated automation software program. Matter enables the cloud migration journey from planning and analysis to deployment and compliance once the applications are cloud enabled.
McKinsey is the trusted advisor to the world's leading businesses, governments and institutions. The firm's cloud offerings aim to modernize organizations' application hosting, network and end-user environments to increase agility, productivity and efficiency while reducing risk. The acquisition of Candid will further enhance McKinsey's growing offering of cloud knowledge, assets and people.
Merrick Olives and John Peak, co-founders and managing partners of Candid, said: "Selecting an investment banker is a difficult process. We were inundated by inquiries to the point where they were becoming a distraction. After getting to know Don and his team, we found the right bankers for us. The Citizens team not only had the requisite knowledge of our market segment but also a straightforwardness and candor that was a perfect fit for our culture. Don ran a disciplined, highly effective process from first meeting through close. The team's efforts yielded a terrific outcome with an ideal partner for our business. We couldn't be more pleased with the result."
Don Holbrook, managing director at Citizens, said: "Candid Partners is a one-of-a-kind combination of enterprise-grade consulting expertise and deep, downstack technical cloud skills. Its Matter software is a unique solution for clients looking for an automated and secure cloud migration journey. Candid's capabilities are a natural addition to McKinsey's world-class consulting services."