In buying CPS, mhance pays for a Copilot practice it did not build

On 12 October mhance, a Microsoft Solutions Partner owned by private equity firm SilverTree Equity, said it had completed the acquisitions of CPS, a Reading-based Microsoft partner with a Copilot and agent practice, and City Dynamics, a Dynamics 365 Business Central specialist in financial services. The announcement, as published by Technology Reseller, gave no price or terms.

The release gives most of its weight to CPS. mhance says CPS works across AI and Copilot, Dynamics 365, Modern Work and portfolio management, that it is a Copilot Jumpstart Priority partner and that it was a worldwide finalist for Microsoft’s 2025 Copilot & Agent Partner of the Year. Chief executive Chris Allan said CPS “has built one of the strongest Copilot and agent practices in the Microsoft ecosystem”, and that the combined business could “support customers from their core systems through to measurable AI outcomes within one Microsoft-focused group”.

The scale of the deal comes from IT Channel Oxygen’s report on the acquisitions, which put CPS at around 100 employees and said it claims around 250 customers. mhance told the outlet that the deals take its headcount to around 180, and IT Channel Oxygen reported that mhance’s revenue rose 4% to £15.9m in calendar 2025. On those figures, CPS brings more than half of the enlarged group’s staff, which would make the acquired business larger by headcount than mhance and City Dynamics combined.

That ratio shows how a private-equity-backed Dynamics house with a not-for-profit heritage chose to scale up in Copilot: by buying a team bigger than its own, with Microsoft’s recognition attached. What mhance has paid for sits in people, customer relationships and standing with Microsoft, all of which an integration can lose, and the way mhance has staffed that integration suggests it knows as much.

From buyout to two deals in 13 months

The acquisitions follow a plan set out when SilverTree Equity bought mhance in September 2025. IT Channel Oxygen reported at the time that SilverTree promised to grow the business organically and through M&A, including expansion into adjacent verticals and a bigger Azure and Dynamics offering. The same report described mhance as a Microsoft Dynamics GP specialist in the non-profit sector.

A new leadership team followed. Allan has been chief executive since January 2026, and in April mhance appointed Andy Cowdrill, a 15-year Microsoft veteran, as chief revenue officer, with a remit that, according to IT Channel Oxygen, included expanding into adjacent markets through M&A as well as organically. Allan described the goal then as positioning mhance as a “Microsoft-first, AI-enabled partner”, in words quoted by IT Channel Oxygen. The CPS and City Dynamics deals arrive 13 months after the buyout.

The price of a Copilot track record

The release does not say what mhance paid, and IT Channel Oxygen’s report gives no figure either, so the market cannot see what a Copilot and agent practice with Microsoft recognition now costs a buyer.

A Dynamics partner can recruit Copilot consultants one at a time; it cannot recruit a worldwide finalist place in Microsoft’s partner awards or Jumpstart Priority status, which belong to the firm that earned them. By buying CPS, mhance gets both and attaches them to its own Dynamics 365 work in the not-for-profit, construction, distribution and manufacturing markets it names as established.

City Dynamics adds a narrower piece: Business Central work for financial services. mhance says the two deals broaden its reach across financial and professional services. Allan’s case is cross-selling inside one group, from the finance system to Copilot, and other private-equity-backed Microsoft partners are likely to be measured against it. Specialist Copilot and agent practices with Microsoft recognition may find more buyers interested in them, and partners that sell Dynamics alone may meet competitors offering both.

CPS’s former chief in charge of integration

IT Channel Oxygen reported that Stephen Adams, chief executive of CPS, joins mhance as chief integration officer. The appointment puts the person CPS’s staff and customers know at the center of the stage most likely to lose them. In the release, Adams described the deal as “a positive step for our customers and people”, one that builds “on the trusted relationships developed over many years”.

Allan addressed the same point, saying mhance’s priority was “to deliver greater value from their Microsoft investments while maintaining continuity throughout the integration”. Executive chairman Julian Stone called the deals “a transformative milestone” that would “accelerate our growth plans”. The release gives no timetable for combining three Microsoft-focused businesses and does not say whether CPS and City Dynamics will keep their names.

Copilot and agent work is sold on the people delivering it, and CPS’s team accounts for more than half of the enlarged group’s headcount, which leaves little room to fold it quietly into a Dynamics business. Haseet Sanghrajka, chief executive of City Dynamics, said joining mhance would “provide greater scale and opportunity for our clients and people”.

The deal shows a private-equity-backed Dynamics partner buying Copilot capability instead of building it, and taking on a business larger than its own core to get it. Whether the bet pays depends less on Microsoft’s product roadmap than on how many of CPS’s roughly 100 people and 250 customers are still with the group a year into Adams’s integration.