Acquisition doubles revenues of communications group

Telecoms business Arden Group has been bought, creating a £20m-turnover communications group.

London-based babble cloud holdings, a cloud communications technology provider backed by private equity firm LDC, will double its revenues through the acquistion. The combined business will have more than 1,200 customers.

Arden Group’s Birmingham office will become babble’s first location outside London.

Matt Parker, chief executive of babble, described the deal as “more like a merger than an acquisition”.

He said: “It’s unusual to get a chance to double the size of a business with a single acquisition but with our purchase of Arden Group we have done exactly that.

“More importantly we’ve significantly strengthened our product portfolio, added real talent to the leadership and management teams and given ourselves a great footprint outside London with a team that has built a loyal and highly referenceable customer base.”

babble said the deal will add strength in mobile and IT managed services to babble’s existing market-leadership in Unified Communication (UCaaS) and cloud-based Contact Centre solutions (CCaaS).

Nigel Walker, Arden Group’s former managing director and majority owner, said: “The two organisations are an extremely good fit, our cultures are aligned, Arden’s product portfolio is entirely complementary, and I am confident knowing that our customers will continue to receive the standards of care and attention we have always delivered.”

The business has been backed by LDC since October 2017 and this is the second acquisition babble has made this year. It follows the earlier acquisition of Direct Response Plus, formerly part of the Yonder Digital Group of companies.

Alex Clark, investment director at LDC, and member of the babble cloud board, added: “The acquisition of Arden Group will continue to strengthen babble’s core proposition, as well as extend the business’ span across the UK. Since partnering with Matt and the team, we have been actively looking to drive scale in what is a highly competitive market and this second acquisition in our first year of partnership forms part of a wider ongoing growth strategy as we look to build a business with longstanding value.”