Jacksonville company buys St. Louis-based IT consulting firm

Jacksonville company buys St. Louis-based IT consulting firm (Courtesy of the Jacksonville Business Journal) — Jacksonville-based Consulting Solutions has purchased iBridge Solutions LLC, an information technology consulting firm founded in 2000 in the St. Louis area.

Terms of the purchase were not disclosed. When combined, the two firms will have 175 staff members, about 1,300 contractors and projected revenue of $245 million this year.

Consulting Solutions CEO Michael Werblun said iBridge is now a stand-alone division of Consulting Solutions.

“We have individual brands that hold market value. There are certainly smaller acquisitions we’ve done in the past that were consolidated into an existing operating company,” he said.

“But iBridge is a staple in the St. Louis market and has great brand recognition among its customers, not only in St. Louis but in other areas that they serve. It will retain the iBridge brand and operate with the scale of Consulting Solutions behind them,” Werblun added.

Consulting Solutions, which is a portfolio company of Miami-based private equity firm White Wolf Capital, was founded in 2005. Consulting Solutions has about 150 employees, 1,200 contractors and $230 million in revenue. It was named last year to the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing private companies.

Werblun said the similarities between Consulting Solutions and iBridge were key in the deal. What iBridge does is similar to another company under the Consulting Solutions umbrella – Meridian Technologies, with offices in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Arlington, Virginia, he said.

“We’re a larger firm so we have some other practice areas that iBridge does not provide today. So their customers now have access to a broader range of services simply given our size and scale,” he said.

It’s a “dynamic environment” in the IT staffing and services sector, especially on the capital project side, Werblun said.

“A lot of money being spent locally; a lot of critical infrastructure into these organizations. It’s ever-changing. It’s fast and it’s outpacing the talent. So it’s an exciting challenge, so we’re thrilled to have iBridge and their customers, employers and consultants part of the family,” he added.

Craig Boren, principal and co-founder of iBridge, said the firm began to search for an acquisition partner about six months ago to help expand its capacity to recruit IT staffing and provide services. The best fit was Consulting Solutions, he said.

“A lot of it was gut feel. We just felt very comfortable that they held the same core values that we held – that business was about your clients and your employees first and doing things the right way,” said Boren, whose new title is senior vice president.

IBridge provides IT staffing services to Fortune 1000 clients, delivering candidates with “hard-to-find skillsets,” the company said. Its largest clients include Bayer AG (OTCMKTS: BAYRY), Mastercard Inc. (NYSE: MA), the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Panera Bread, Olin Corp. (NYSE: OLN) and Centene Corp. (NYSE: CNC).

With an office at 2 CityPlace Drive in Creve Coeur, iBridge has about 125 employees and consultants, and had annual revenue of about $15 million in 2021.

In the two weeks since the deal closed, Boren said it’s been reinforced that Consulting Solutions was the right decision for a buyer.

“Every day when I speak to their executives and staff, I get nothing but support and comfort that this is a really good match. This is going to allow us to do bigger and better things going forward,” he said.