Accumuli annouunces £4m deal and £5m fundraising
SALFORD Quays-based company Accumuli has announced a £5m fundraising on the Alternative Investment Market to allow it to complete a reverse takeover of Basingstoke-based telecoms firm Tuscany Networks.
Accumuli is paying £4m in cash for the business, which manages the network and IP address requirements of larger corporate businesses. The firm handles IP registrations for 200 major companies – the largest of which has around 400,000 IP addresses across its network.
The deal marks the first step in Accumuli’s ‘buy and build’ strategy which the firm announced in July following its £3.2m disposal of the Netservices business in May. However, the company added that it has two other deals lined up – boith of which should complete by the end of the first quarter of 2011.
Accumuli said that Tuscany operates in a market where demand for services will continue to grow and has developed the necessary skills and customer base on which to build. It said that Tuscany is a profitable and cash-generative operation from which to build its business – accounts for the six months to June 30 show a pre-tax profit of £389,000 on sales of £2.5m.
“We are pleased to be recommending our first acquisition prospect to Accumuli shareholders following the change of strategic direction for the group,” said the company’s chairman, Graham Norfolk.
“We believe Tuscany is a well positioned, growing business operating in a growing market. The acquisition of Tuscany, if approved, marks the first step in our plan to create an enlarged group with a full range of services and product offerings in the managed IT security services sector.
Accumuli, which is run by chief executive Ian Smith, intends to raise £5m through issuing 76.9m new shares at 6.5p per share – a discount of 1.89% on its closing price yesterday. Accumuli currently has around 32m shares in issue and although the new issues has not been underwritten, finance director Ian Winn said that the company “wouldn’t be sticking our head above the parapet” if it hadn’t already gauged the appetite for the newly-issued shares.
The deal is subject to shareholder approval and a general meeting has been set for November 25. Winn added that the money raised should be enough to allow it to complete its next series of acquisitions, as a recent trading statement showed that on August 31 the company had around £2.5m-worth of cash and equivalents.
“There’s always a trade-off with the institutions between being seen to build a war chest and having to go back to raise more money,” said Winn.
The company has been advised on both the acquisition and new share placing by Zeus Capital.
“We have known Ian Smith and his team for several years and are pleased to have been able to support him and raise these funds for a very interesting buy-and-build strategy,” said Zeus Capital’s founder Richard Hughes.
