Lancashire telecoms firm seals £175m deal to buy part of rival’s business

 

Lancashire based Daisy Group has sealed a £175m deal to buy the business-to-business customer base of rival firm TalkTalk.

The privately owned telecoms and internet business based in Nelson in East Lancashire has made a number of acquisitions in recent years.

An announcement was made to the Stock Exchange this morning as the company published its annual results.
TalkTalk reported a statutory operating loss £18m compared to a profit of £95m the previous year.

The firm said the dramatic fall in profits was the result of £119m of one-off costs associated with re-organising and simplifying the business.

The two firms have signed a deal which will see all 80,000 TalkTalk direct B2B customers transferred to Daisy.

The deal includes SoHo, SME and large enterprise clients, and represents less than 20% of TalkTalk’s B2B revenues.

The transaction is due to complete in late July 2018. Daisy is an existing strategic partner of TalkTalk, meaning all customers will continue to be served by the TalkTalk network.

The sale will see TalkTalk’s EBITDA fall by £15m next year.

TalkTalk’s Chief Executive, Tristia Harrison, said: “Last year we set out a strategy to radically simplify the business, focussing on fewer priorities that offer the best growth potential.

“TalkTalk has real strength in the Partner and Wholesale markets, where we have scale and a clear leadership position.

“It represents the vast majority of our revenue and profit and we see real opportunity to continue growing at pace.

“This proposed deal would allow us to focus on growth in those core B2B markets, whilst also removing significant complexity and cost from the business.

“As an existing strategic partner, Daisy is well placed to serve all direct customers, who would remain on our network and provide ongoing revenue.”

The Daisy Group is the largest independent provider of end-to-end technology, communications and cloud solutions to UK business.

The group has revenues of around £700m and has 3,700 employees in 30 locations across the UK.

Established in 2001, Daisy has grown its capabilities in line with the converging business communications and IT services markets.

Daisy has a product and service portfolio which includes lines and calls, data connectivity, security, mobile, LAN and WiFi, hybrid cloud, IT managed services and business continuity.

It serves small, mid-market and enterprise businesses both directly and indirectly and it does this through its specialist business units – Daisy Retail, Daisy Wholesale, Daisy Distribution, Daisy Corporate Services and Daisy Partner Services.

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