Daisy goes acquisition hunting with new banking facility

Daisy Communications is again targeting acquisitions of both businesses and partner customer bases after completing a refinancing project and securing a £100m bank facility.

The business communications and IT services provider is offering indirect telecoms business owners the chance to earn up to million pound figures following an internal restructure and investment into its small and medium business division.

Since its inception in 2001 Daisy has been acquisitive in the market, deploying a Buy and Build strategy that has seen Daisy complete multiple base-buys from multiple indirect partners as well as outright purchases, boosting the 60,000 Daisy-billed customer numbers.

Janine Murray, Head of Acquisitions at Daisy, said: “There is a perception in the industry that Daisy is only interested in large acquisitions, however, this isn’t the case. We’re actively looking to acquire all types of businesses, in particular, UK-based telecoms providers that supply a range of traditional telephony services to SMBs.

“We’re offering an opportunity for owners to realise cash from the sale of their business or customer bases without the risk of the financial investment required to convert their customers to the latest technologies such as SIP.”

Murray continued: “Having completed more than 60 deals over the last decade, we have an experienced in-house team which enables us to make quick decisions and deals. Our pragmatic approach and the fact that most of our due diligence process is conducted in house ensures vendors can expect an expedited transaction process.

“With uncertainty surrounding Brexit, shareholders may want to take advantage of the current entrepreneur’s tax relief, which means they will only pay 10% on their disposal proceeds. It’s uncertain how long the beneficial tax rate will last so selling to Daisy is a tax-efficient way to extract cash.”

However, Daisy recognises that not every shareholder is ready to hang up their boots or jet set off into the sun and offers an alternative option.

“It’s common that we will buy businesses from shareholders that have already started to take a back seat which ensures minimal disruption once sold,” Murray added.

“However, we’re also open to doing deals with owners who want to extract cash from their business by selling their existing customer base, before going out again to win new customers and being in a position to sell once more in the future. It’s a win-win situation; the entrepreneurs can extract cash from each customer base sale and it’s an endless acquisition opportunity for Daisy.”

During 2018, Daisy acquired DV02 – a long-standing Daisy partner that specialised in providing voice and connectivity services – and direct EE partner Voice Mobile, which brought c. 50,000 mobile connections into the business, as well as multiple base-buys and independent acquisitions.

Source: commsbusiness

Industry: Unified communication news