In a move that marks its biggest ever buy to date; the Daisy Group announced it had purchased SpiriTel, a service provider for an investment pegged at £37 million. Daisy Group’s investment amount, the £37 million is inclusive of repayment of debt facilities from Clydesdale Bank. The Clydesdale Bank has financed SpiriTel’s buy and build strategy since 2007.

With the investment, the Daisy Group now takes over a business with a turnover pegged at more than £30 million, with around 200 staff working from offices in London, Cardiff, Wigan and Glasgow.

The terms of the seal are such that, post the acquisition, SpiriTel chief executive officer, Alastair Mills and chief financial officer Ronnie Smith will leave the business to focus on other business ventures. Ever since it was set up three years ago, SpiriTel Business, SpiriTel’s main trading unit has undertaken 12 acquisitions thus far, recently reporting a 15 per cent organic growth rate.

SpiriTel boasts more than 4,000 corporate clients including RBS, Barclays, BBC Worldwide, Marriott, HMV and City of London. The company won its largest contract to date in August of this year with a three year, £5 million deal with Punch Taverns to deliver integrated voice and data solutions across 800 sites.

The Daisy Group further reiterated that the acquisition of SpiriTel symbolizes a successful exit for the majority owner of SpiriTel, Penta Capital. Penta Capital originally invested in SpiriTel in 2003 but more recently led a £10 million fundraising in November 2009 and provides a substantial profit for the private equity group.

Matthew Riley, Daisy Group chief executive said the Daisy Board believes that this acquisition gives Daisy a strong foothold in the mid-market, strengthening its sales team and engineering force, while significantly enhancing both its product portfolio and customer base.

He further stated that with Daisy Group’s data hosting capabilities from the former Vialtus Solutions business, this deal gives the firm a great cross-sale opportunity to sell hosted solutions and fill its three data centres in London, Manchester and Fareham. In addition, SpiriTel’s position as a Mitel Premier Partner, coupled with a nationwide engineering force will see enhancements to Daisy Group’s systems and maintenance division, said Riley.

Alastair Mills, SpiriTel chief executive, commenting on the investment said it has been a real pleasure to lead SpiriTel through a period of transformation and establish the Company as one of the fastest growing providers of integration communications to UK business customers.

11 Nov 2010.