Chess swoops for billing specialist
ACQUISITIVE North West telecoms group Chess has snapped up a billing specialist as it nears its half-century of deals.
The £30m turnover Cheshire company has bought Hertfordshire-based Shaftesbury Systems.
Shaftesbury, which has 14 staff and is based in Potters Bar, provides billing and customer care solutions for resellers in the telecoms market. It has developed a bespoke billing system called ebillz.
David Pollock, chief executive of Chess said of the deal – his company’s 49th acquisition since 2004 – “It gives Chess a strategic growth opportunity by offering our award winning telecoms services to Shaftesbury’s customers, and also offering to our existing wholesale customers the ebillz billing solutions.”
More than 220 customers – some as far afield as Canada and the US – use its ebillz billing and customer care platform.
The previous owners Howard Chaplin and Philip Broder will be retained in a consultancy role while Stephen Dracup, Chess’ business development director, has been appointed managing director of Shaftesbury Systems.
Chess director, Richard Btesh, commented “At the heart of every telecoms reseller is the billing system. Chess have acquired over 45 customer bases in the last six years, a number of which bill using Shaftesbury’s ebillz system.
“Without exception, the Shaftesbury customer experience has been highly commended and as a consequence this acquisition had immediate appeal.”
