Comms Dealer

Hot on the heels of news that Beta Distribution's bid to buy Entatech collapsed the struggling Telford-based IT distie fell into administration. In February 2016 Entatech settled its lengthy legal battle with the liquidators of Enta Group company Changtel and became solely owned by Stevinson Capital, a business controlled by Entatech MD Dave Stevinson (pictured).

The settlement was a long running, challenging and complex deal involving multiple firms of lawyers, and at the time Stevinson ranked the outcome as his best career achievement.

Dabs.com founder David Atherton shared Stevinson's vision and joined Entatech as Chairman.

Dabs.com was one of the earliest online retailers of IT equipment, growing from scratch to over £200 million revenue per annum. Atherton sold the business to BT in 2006.

On Entatech's challenge Stevinson said in August last year: "Our challenge and opportunity is to be different from the big four competitors. So we are becoming more relevant to our clients and working smartly in niche sectors, using digital technology and advanced analytics as differentiators and accelerators."

It is believed that the planned sale of the business to Beta Distribution was scuppered by issues relating to due diligence.

Zen's incoming CTO Justin Fielder has compared the firm's potential with that of his old stomping ground Easynet, the first comms company to implement LLU, where he was a driving force.

Easynet was sold to BSkyB in 2005 and the network still forms the backbone of Sky's residential broadband service.

"The similarity between Easynet and Zen was a prime factor in tempting me to relocate from my home in the south east to the Manchester region," said Fielder.

"Easynet was operating at a larger scale but Zen has all the pieces in place and has just doubled its LLU footprint. There are big gaps in the market and major opportunities for Zen, so it's an exciting time to join the business.

"My experience of growing a similar business at Easynet can help Zen fulfil its ambitions. We can swiftly automate everyday back-end processes, freeing up technical staff to focus on long-term projects for the benefit of the business." 

CEO Richard Tang stated: "There are few CTOs in our industry with Justin's level of experience. We are fortunate to have him on board."

Frontier Voice and Data has added cloud call recording solutions to its portfolio following a link-up with TeleWare.

The partnership will focus on mobile, fixed line and Skype for Business call recording particularly in the financial sector where companies must become compliant with the upcoming MiFID II regulations.

Nick Reaks, Chief Operations Officer, TeleWare, said, "MiFID II is demanding greatly increased call recording and storage from companies. For smaller businesses such as hedge funds implementing a total transformation of telephony systems to achieve full compliance is a costly and difficult process.

"Operating that system can be a full-time job which takes away from their main task of delivering performance. By providing systems that are easy to implement and sit on top of existing solutions we are able to help these smaller operations remain profitable and improve their communications solutions."

Nolan Braterman, Business Development Director, Frontier, added: "The analytics that we offer will also mean that companies can gather more data and apply it to inform their growth strategies.

"The joint solutions that we will be offering with TeleWare will do more than meet current needs and will go a long way to answering future requirements as our customers continue their journey."

Beta Distribution MD Steve Soper has confirmed that a deal to acquire Entatech has been called off. He revealed that Beta had been in detailed talks with Entatech and its advisors about acquiring certain assets of the company. "Although we have been in discussions for some time, information obtained during detailed due diligence meant we were unable to continue," stated Soper.

"It is disappointing because this is an industry sector that we are extremely interested in and are looking to develop."

Although not known as a company with an acquisition strategy Soper says that the business is 'always on the lookout for opportunities to grow the Beta name' and has pursued a number of opportunities in the past.

"We have been just as active as our competitors in looking for acquisition opportunities, but so far nothing has materialised," he added.

"We have a five year plan that is based around organic growth, but if the right opportunity came along to increase that growth by acquisition then we would consider it very seriously, as we have done with Entatech."

With annual revenues now approaching £200m and year-on-year double digit growth Beta has the infrastructure and financial capacity to support the right acquisition, believes Soper.

"We will look to buy a company that can contribute to our business that may have expertise that we currently don't have," he said.

"Entatech fitted the bill, with experienced people, important supplier relationships and a well established customer base, but in the end it wasn't to be."

The countdown has begun to VoIP distributor ProVu's latest partner event - 'supercharge your 3CX Sales with Snom' - to be staged at the Etrop Grange Hotel, Manchester on 24th May.

"Aimed at resellers and service providers, this event is designed to equip attendees with the knowledge to successfully position and sell integrated PBX and telephone systems to small and medium-sized businesses," said ProVu's MD Darren Garland.

"With our collaborative approach, we hope to enlighten resellers about the advantages of selling an integrated PBX and hardware solution from independent providers through our close working relationship with both Snom and 3CX."

To find out more visit the ProVu website.

Exertis is to extend the credit lines of a select number of SMB resellers in a move that the distributor described as 'a major credit initiative'.

The Credit Xtra initiative is offered to more than 1,600 accounts and could be worth up to £20m with plans to extend further where resellers have used their increased credit.

Mark Reynolds, Exertis B2B Sales and Commercial Director, said: "By working with our credit insurers, we are in a position to double the facility for over 1,600 resellers and even extend that further if they remain within our usual credit terms."

Exertis works with Chubb Ace, said to be one of the world's largest publicly traded insurers.

Econocom is acquiring operations or parts of companies in Benelux, UK and France as it looks to build business in new sectors.

It is buying 100% of BIS group, a multimedia solutions integrator in the Netherlands and Belgium, a 40% stake in JTRS, an Apple and Google partner for digital solutions in the education sector in the UK, and 100% of LP Digital in France, a digital strategy consulting firm, through its satellite Alter Way.

BIS Group posted a revenue of over €50m in 2016 and employs over 220 people.

This transaction will enable Econocom to bolster its position in the buoyant multimedia segment (indoor and outdoor digital signage, video-conference rooms, smart building, etc.), deploy its entire offering and develop new cross-business line solutions in the key Benelux area.

Econocom will now be present with its three business lines in the group's five priority countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and France), which was one of the objectives of the current strategic plan.

JTRS is a supplier of technology solutions in the education sector in the UK. This fast-growing company, which achieved around €11m in sales in 2016, is an Apple and Google Education partner.

Econocom, which is already established in the UK via its Technology Management & Financing business, has named the UK as one of the key geographical areas of the next strategic plan.

Alter Way, an Econocom company specialising in open source web solutions and DevOps services, has acquired 100% of LP Digital Agency, thereby increasing its annual revenue to €15m. LP Digital Agency specialises in digital strategy consulting for key accounts.

Bruno Grossi, Executive Director of Econocom Group, said: "We are happy to welcome BIS within Econocom and expect significant synergies between their know-how in the dynamic multimedia solutions segment in Benelux and our strong existing operations in the region.

"Being able to propose end-to-end digital solutions, including financing, brings in our view tremendous value to our clients."

Mitel is targeting a 10% cut in its global workforce by yearend in a move that CEO Rich McBee described as 'proactive cost reduction' based on the loss of circa 330 jobs.

This is expected to generate annualised savings of around $30m while the cost of job reductions is said to be in the range of $25m to $35m this year.

The news was announced with the release of Mitel's Q1 results and follows the Canadian vendor's sale of its mobile software division (based on the $545m acquisition of Mavenir in April 2015) in February this year.

Richard McBee, Chief Executive Officer, said: "With the mobile divestiture behind us we are taking proactive cost reduction actions to align our operating expenses with our current and future business investment needs. This includes a workforce reduction of approximately 10% expected to be completed between now and the end of the year."

Chief Financial Officer Steve Spooner added: "During the quarter Mitel took several major steps to fundamentally strengthen our capital structure and operating model.

"We paid down $364m in debt, secured attractive new credit facilities at significantly lower interest rates, initiated a stock buyback programme and initiated cost reduction actions to position the company to achieve its long-term financial targets."

For its first quarter Mitel reported a dip in revenues to $223.1m (down from $233m in the same period last year), and a net loss of $21.1m.

Recurring cloud seats grew by 45,000 during the quarter and now stand at 588,000.

"In Enterprise, we drove steady market share gains," adde McBee. "We were especially pleased with our performance in the larger European markets, and recurring cloud grew in-line with our expectations as orders continued to be strong, and we continued to ramp our installation capacity."

Logicalis UK has enlisted Stuart Radcliffe as Finance Director, replacing Paul Crilly who has taken on a new role within a Datatec Group company in Australia.

Radcliffe brings over 20 years experience and joins Logicalis UK from Unify where he was Chief Financial Officer responsible for the governance of various territories within APAC, EMEA and Russia, managing a combined business turnover exceeding 400 million euros.

Prior to this, Radcliffe held Finance Director positions at Acentic, Affiniti, and Omnetica.

Radcliffe reports directly to the Logicalis UK Managing Director Bob Swallow, who said: "Stuart's knowledge and experience in our marketplace will enable him to contribute to our strategy of putting our customers at the centre of everything we do, giving them access to the full portfolio of Logicalis solutions allowing us to strive toward our vision of making every customer a reference."

Ahead of the latest release of its partner and customer portals fast expanding plan.com has added 15 more sales staff, moved to a new Isle of Man HQ and is relocating its UK office.

Angie Ablard, Head of Sales, said: "It takes more than an intelligent portal and hard work to maintain and grow our customer base and relationships. It takes people - smart, experienced people.

"Partners told us that you want fewer points of contact, who are more hands on, and more accountable than ever before. The growth of our sales team reflects our commitment to our partners and the importance of the sales role to our business."

The retentions team is also expanding and will relocate from its current base in Didsbury, Manchester, to a new office in Stockport.

"Renewals and retentions are something that we take very seriously," added Ablard. "We're developing the team, the portal that the team uses, and their working environment, too."