Chess Telecom completes two more acquisitions
Reseller has now bought 15 fims in the past two years
Chess Telecom has reopened its active chequebook and completed two further acquisitions to take the VAR’s tally to 15 in just over two years.
The acquisitive reseller has snapped up the customer bases of Coventry-based VAR You Telecom and Northumberland-based reseller Active Telecom. This follows on from Chess’ recent purchase of the customer base of Manchester-based VAR, The Telecoms Group (CRN, 7 August).
You Telecom and Active Telecom have also signed up as Strategic Alliance Partners of Chess, which allows the VARs to continue to operate as a business, and earn commissions from Chess.
Talking exclusively to CRN, Richard Btesh, director of corporate finance at Chess, said that the telecoms sector continues to undergo a period of mass consolidation.
“These latest acquisitions are smaller and show a different strategy for us as we are acquiring firms with a turnover less than £250,000 a year. These firms will now be given the opportunity to build up their business with Chess.”
Btesh said some small telecoms VARs are under pressure with regulations and costs, and are often forced out of the market as they do not have the scale needed to survive.
“We make the firms we have acquired more competitive and give them the critical mass they need,” he said.
“Going forward ideally we want to make one acquisition a month, but that is not always possible.”
David Pollock, chief executive of Chess, said: “Lots of people are talking about making acquisitions, but actions speak louder than words. We have developed a lot of experience over the past 27 months. Our latest acquisition t ook just a few days to complete.”
Roger Wilson, chairman at VAR Adept Telecom, which has made 13 acquisitions in 35 months, said: “Acquiring customer bases gives scale and the market is all about scale. This allows firms to buy wholesale at the best possible rate.”