Daisy offers £27.3m for SpiriTel
TELECOMS group Daisy is to buy rival SpiriTel for £27.3m.
Nelson-based Daisy has made an offer of 51.5p per share for SpiriTel , which is a telecoms reseller serving a customer base comprising largely of SMEs. It will also assume responsibility for SpiriTel ‘s outstanding debt of £6.1m if the offer is approved.
London-based SpiriTel was floated on the AIM market in July 2004 and has grown both organically and via acquisition – it has completed 12 acquisitions since 2006, all of which have been consolidated under the SpiriTel Business division, which is headquartered in Wigan. It also has offices in Glasgow and Cardiff.
The firm also has a SpiriTel Technologies business selling telecoms infrastructure and wholesale airtime deals.
In total, the SpiriTel group now has a base of around 4,200 customers and a couple of months after it was formed and has grown both organically and through acquisition. In the year to April 30, it declared a pre-tax loss of £11.4m on turnover of £21.3m.
The company’s customers include Punch Taverns, the huge pub company for whom the firm is installing 800 hosted voice over IP system in its sites as part of a £5m deal.
Daisy has said that it has already received undertakings from 82.7% of SpiriTel shareholder base that they will accept the offer, which is pitched at a premium of 13.2% on yesterday’s closing price of 45.5p. SpiriTel directors have also unanimously recommended the offer be accepted by shareholders.
Daisy’s founder and chief executive officer Matthew Riley, said: “This is the largest acquisition Daisy has made since coming to market last year. The Daisy board believes that this acquisition gives Daisy a strong foothold in the mid-market, strengthening our sales team and engineering force, while significantly enhancing both our product portfolio and customer base.
“With our data hosting capabilities from the former Vialtus Solutions business, this deal gives us a great cross-sale opportunity to sell hosted solutions and fill our three data centres in London, Manchester and Fareham.
“Over the last 18 months, Daisy Group has acquired and integrated 10 businesses. The Daisy board believes the experience of those acquisitions should enable an efficient integration of SpiriTel into the Daisy Group platform.”
SpiriTel’s non-executive chairman, Lord St John of Bletso, said: “The SpiriTel Board is happy that the offer being made by Daisy represents an attractive valuation of SpiriTel, which recognises the value created by our strategy of successfully acquiring and integrating 12 businesses since 2006.”
Law firm Addleshaw Goddard advised Daisy on the deal. Spiritel has been advised by telecoms specialist Knight Corporate Finance and finnCap. Deloitte carried out due diligence.
