Spice in telecoms buy
UTILITY support services group Spice has bought Redbridge Management Services in a move which strengthens its telecoms division.
The £4.1m acquisition, is for an initial payment of £3.1m plus up to another £1m depending on the performance of the business over the next 12 months.
RMS, based in Chepstow, South Wales, was founded in 2001 by Mark and Sarah Bruce and had turnover in the year to May 31 of £6.8m and adjusted operating profits of £600,000 plus net assets of £800,000.
It employs 68 people – including 58 telecoms engineers – and works across the UK with telecommunications equipment manufacturers, network operators and large corporate clients to provide maintenance, network management, installation and project management to telecoms systems.
Simon Rigby, chief executive of Spice, said: “The acquisition of RMS strengthens our telecoms services division and means that our operational capability is now extended to provide comprehensive, UK-wide, first line maintenance services which compliments our existing UK and European footprint in Hutchison Team
Telecom. We see the addition of some 58 qualified telecommunications engineers as a significant enhancement to our existing capabilities and a win, win for our combined client base.”
Leeds-based Spice was founded in April 1996 when Mr Rigby bought the facilities business of Yorkshire Electricity for a nominal sum. It then had 12 employees and now has several thousand staff.
Mark Bruce, managing director of RMS said: “The opportunities for accelerated growth for RMS as a part of a much larger organisation such as Spice was justification alone to do the deal, however I truly believe that the synergies between RMS and HTT will bring real benefits to our combined customer base and allow the enlarged business to more readily compete for larger pieces of the growing European telecoms outsourcing market.”
