Tandberg Wanted to Buy Synerway

According to two inside sources of Synerway, the company was approached by Tandberg Data and its CEO Pat Clarke that was deeply interested to acquire the French firm.

We think it would be a good fit for both companies because Tandberg could get a good backup software written by Synerway and, Tandberg, as an historical manufacturer of hardware, could build the Synerway appliances.

Several people from Tandberg, including in engineering and marketing, came in France to check Synerway. Even the lawyers of the both companies had a meeting to prepare the final contract. The price was also set at around €1 million and founder and CEO of Synerway Christian Maillard was supposed to be hired and supposed getting an high-level position.

But the relationship stopped abruptly because a common shareholder of Overland and Tandberg, Cyrus Capital Partners LP, wanted at the same time to combine the two US and European storage companies. Apparently, according to one of our sources, the idea of this merger was finally aborted.

Consequently, Synerway, in receivership, was bought – for much less than €1 million – by Noël Minard et Yann Rolland, French partners of Resadia group. The decision was made by judicial administrator Patrick Prigent who received four proposals, but never the one from Tandberg.

Another company that could be interested to acquire the French firm, Quantum, was not approached by Synerway.