GCI Com feels acquisition buzz with Hive buyout

Buy-and-build telecoms firm boosts top line by £6m with acquisition of more than 30,000 customers

Home comforts: GCI will look to provide Hive's residential telecoms base with broadband and other services

Acquisitive telecoms provider GCI Com has made a splash in the residential market with the acquisition of more than 30,000 customers from Hive Telecom.

The buyout, closed last month, covers 28,000 residential customers, in addition to several thousand business customers, in the UK and Ireland. GCI Com's group finance director Mark Allen told ChannelWeb that he expects the buyout to boost his firm's turnover by about £6m.

"We believe this to be a very good quality base of customers that has been grown over a period of time and has been looked after," he said. "We will absolutely maintain this and will offer them further products."

Lincoln-based GCI has already invested in boosting staff numbers in its customer service and credit control divisions to service the Hive base. GCI had not been in the market for a residential base, said Allen, but the "volume and quality" involved in the Hive deal had been attractive, as had the opportunity to upsell broadband and other services.

Prior to the deal, GCI was estimating it would more than double 2010 turnover to about £40m. The firm aims to become a £100m player within a few years, with growth largely fuelled through acquisition.

Allen claimed another buyout before Christmas is feasible, adding that GCI would look to close another five or six deals next year.

"But we are not just an EBITDA buying machine," he said. "We will be looking to make strategic acquisitions as well as volume ones."