Key points
Revenue: £684.3m (+14%)
EBITDA margin: 18.6%
Staff: 3,479
Having reportedly shelved plans for a £1bn sale this summer, Daisy is now intent on ploughing on with organic and acquisitive growth under its own steam. Revenues for its year to 31 March 2018, which include the first full-year contribution of Alternative Networks, fell short of expectations, rising 14 per cent to £684.3m. EBITDA - which is Daisy's preferred profit measure (hence why we have taken the special measure of displaying EBITDA in the headline of this profile) - however, powered up 31 per cent to £127m. Having started life in 2001 as a supplier of lines and calls to SMEs, the Lancashire-based firm now has a diversified portfolio and customer base, drawing £127m of its sales from networks, £167m from data, £200m from systems, £147m from mobile and £44m from business continuity; and vendor partnerships ranging from Vodafone and O2 to Cisco, Dell EMC, HPE, Microsoft and VMware. Ninety per cent of its revenues are now recurring in nature, up from 86 per cent year on year.