Company Roundup: RESOURCE1, Cognizant, InterCloud

RESOURCE1: RESOURCE1, a national provider of talent-acquisition and executive-search services, acquired Carnegie Affiliates, a boutique IT search firm specializing in permanent staffing solutions in the New York metro region. 

Resource1, a wholly owned subsidiary of technology solutions provider Micro Strategies, Inc., and Carnegie are both based in Parsippany.

Resource1 acquired the 40-year-old Carnegie because of its well-established client base and strong reputation for providing high-quality technical talent to companies in the New York metropolitan area.

“The completion of the Carnegie acquisition fits squarely into our strategic growth plans,” said Mark Vallario, Resource1’s vice president of staffing operations. He added that Carnegie’s reputation, market experience and commitment to representing best-of-breed candidates allows the combined group to offer a high level of staffing support to clients.

Cognizant: Cognizant (Teaneck) is forming a $100 million nonprofit foundation to support STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and digital education and skills initiatives for U.S. workers and students. 

The funding for the new foundation is a result of anticipated benefits due to recent changes in U.S. tax laws, Cognizant said. The new foundation will focus on financing education and skills programs in multiple cities and states to help improve opportunities for U.S. workers and students. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, by 2020 there will be a 1.4-million person gap in the U.S. between the number of software development jobs and the qualified applicants available to fill them. 

 “Unfortunately, because of a very real skills gap, there are far more open jobs for technical work than there are trained workers to fill them,” said Cognizant CEO Francisco D’Souza. He noted that a recent report done by the company on 21 “jobs of the future” identified artificial intelligence, virtual reality, big data and other technologies as the new tools of the trade. And he added, “The Cognizant U.S. Foundation will directly address the existing technology skills gap through innovative programs focused on educating a wide range of Americans and preparing them to thrive in the digital era.”

In addition to STEM education and skills programs, the Cognizant U.S. Foundation, which will be organized as a 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization, will fund public?private partnerships and other initiatives designed for high school graduates, community college and college students, military veterans and others in the workforce looking to obtain specialized technical skills for digital technology jobs.

InterCloud: InterCloud Systems (Shrewsbury), a provider of cloud networking orchestration and automation solutions and services, said that it had a definitive agreement for the sale of its subsidiary ADEX Corporation (Atlanta, Ga.). Under the terms of this asset sale, InterCloud will receive $5 million in a combination of cash and a seller’s note.  

Mark Munro, chairman and CEO of InterCloud stated, “The sale of this asset continues the realignment of InterCloud’s business strategy and reduction of our outstanding liabilities.” The closing will be subject to the completion of financing by the acquirer and other standard closing conditions.

In December, Munro sent a letter to shareholders that said, in part: “As we are nearing the completion of our restructuring, I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on the status of our efforts and our outlook moving forward.  Management is cognizant of the losses in our share value suffered through these restructuring efforts. Nevertheless, as we have substantially reduced our debt and strengthened our balance sheet, we improved our prospects for the turnaround of the Company.  We did this without taking advantage of bankruptcy protection laws, which we believe would have had a more devastating effect on the Company’s shareholders, debt holders and operations going forward.  

“After a long, arduous three-year period, the Class Action lawsuit and Derivative Actions that burdened the Company since mid-2014 have finally been settled and terminated as of December 5th 2017.  The Company spent a material amount of time and money throughout the process.  This liquidity drain is finally over and we can now be more focused on building our businesses and continuing to restructure.”