CDW to buy Midwest reseller

CDW Corp. is boosting its state and local government business through the acquisition of a Midwest reseller with $390 million in annual revenue.

CDW Corp. is boosting its state and local government business through the acquisition of a Midwest reseller with $390 million in annual revenue.

CDW will pay about $175 million in cash for Berbee Information Networks Corp. of Madison, Wis. The acquisition is expected to close by the end of October.

Company officials declined to name the size of Berbee's government business, but the company has customers in six states: Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio.

Berbee sells a variety of solutions built around products from Cisco Systems Inc., IBM Corp. and Microsoft Corp. The company's expertise includes network infrastructure and communications, systems and storage, security, productivity applications and managed services.

Berbee will become a separate division of CDW and will not be pulled under CDW Government Inc., the company's public sector division.

The top three executives with Berbee, including CEO Paul Shain, will join CDW and will continue to run the business.

Berbee was advised on the transaction by Piper Jaffray & Co.