
"After our buyout of CWS we experienced a growth for regional services and this was one of drivers for this acquisition. The bringing together of these two companies provides a regional base from which to promote new products and services," he said.
PKBA’s acquisition of CWS in June attracted the attention of several of its competitors to North Queensland. In recent weeks, Lane Technical Services became a prized target for several suitors before being sold to PKBA, said Lane Technical Services founder Gary Lane.
"My decision to choose PKBA was due to its commitment to local customers and employees, with the backing of national scale and reach," he said.
Lane Technical Services was established in 1991 as a local IT sales and support company for the Townsville region. Since then it has grown to provide value add IT services to several hundred diverse businesses in North Queensland.
Stead told CRN, PKBA will retain all Lane employees and it is also looking to increase workers to a total of twenty.
"We are pretty close to that number now and we hope to add a few more support and core technical staff," he said.
Since its start-up in February this year, PKBA has acquired a number of IT services providers around Australia, among them Comsta in Tasmania, Pecol in South Australia and national SMB service provider Invizage (acquired from Sensis).