Newest acquisition integral to Acacia's strategy to address the growing shortage of skilled talent to lead and support digital transformation initiatives
Washington D.C., May 25, 2022 – The Acacia Group, values-driven operational investors in digital transformation businesses, announced today that it has acquired The Baer Group, a specialist in high-end technology services supporting major commercial and public sector organizations. The acquisition is central to Acacia’s strategy of building businesses adept at helping government and commercial organizations access the agile technical talent and services they need to deliver digital transformation. The Baer Group will form a new platform business within the Acacia portfolio.
Craig Dawson, Co-founder and Partner with Acacia, said: “Global demand for the best technical talent is at an all-time high and will only continue to grow. The team at Baer, who are exceptionally well regarded by their clients, oversees an expansive network of consultants and developers highly skilled in enabling clients to exploit the full commercial and mission potential of digital transformation. We see immediate opportunities for Baer to support the clients of current Acacia companies with their demand for skilled technical talent. We will also invest in expanding the scale and breadth of Baer’s network of talent to grow its current blue-chip customer base. Baer has a bright future as part of the Acacia family. We’re delighted to welcome them to the team.”
The Baer Group was established in 1997 in Atlanta as an SAP preferred services provider. Since then, the company has become a trusted partner to Fortune 500 companies across key markets including life sciences, consumer products and retail—bolstering their digital transformation strategies with consultants and developers specializing in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), cloud integration and data transformation. Baer also works closely with federal systems integrators, supporting U.S. government programs with specialist resources and subject matter experts. Today, Baer’s project teams specialize in a wide range of enterprise platforms, including SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, ServiceNow, AWS, Azure and Google Cloud.
Peter Aaron, President of The Baer Group, said: “As a new platform within the Acacia portfolio, we’re creating new possibilities for our company and new opportunities for our people. Together we have ambitious plans that will enable us to grow in scale and boost our value to clients. We will be expanding and diversifying our technical capabilities and product partnerships, growing our team and strengthening our ability to deliver on an international scale. Acacia shares our commitment to building teams of highly skilled and motivated people around a culture of innovation. That shared philosophy will serve us well as we continue to grow Baer as a destination employer for the best talent in the industry.”
The rationale for Acacia's acquisition of Baer stems from its direct experience of the growing challenges organizations face in attracting and retaining the best technical talent in a post-pandemic world. Skilled people are seeking greater career opportunity, diversity and flexibility. These dynamics, combined with the shortage of experienced engineers and developers, make it more challenging and costly for large organizations to sustain in-house technical teams. Such organizations are increasingly turning to businesses like Baer for specialist support.
The Baer acquisition builds on Acacia's 2020 acquisition of TradeHelm, a world-class nearshore software development business based in Argentina. TradeHelm now forms part of a highly successful global delivery capability for MajorKey Technologies, a digital transformation business within the Acacia portfolio—meeting growing client demand for more agile and cost-effective software development capabilities.
7 Mile Advisors served as exclusive advisors to The Baer Group for this transaction.
About The Acacia Group
The Acacia Group is a values-driven technology investment firm. We build businesses that benefit from and deliver digital transformation, creating the conditions for strong and sustainable growth. We empower skilful leaders, shape collaborative cultures, nurture exceptional talent, develop differentiated IP, and build distinctive brands. As independent sponsors, we can focus on creating great businesses with hands-on support for our management teams. This way, we enable the companies in our portfolio to reach new heights of achievement. For more information, visit The Acacia Group or follow us on LinkedIn.
About The Baer Group
The Baer Group delivers comprehensive technology services in support of enterprise digital transformation projects. We work to align the best technologies, processes and people to fuel the commercial growth and mission success of our private and public sector clients. Through a combination of our highly experienced staff, our proven best practices, and access to world-class talent, we deliver an approach tailored to the unique needs of each client, with industry-leading expertise across a wide range of enterprise technology platforms including SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, ServiceNow, AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. For more information, visit The Baer Group or follow us on LinkedIn.
