Six Degrees gears up for growth after credit boost

Buy-and-build firm secures £25m funding with Clydesdale Bank to pursue acquisition and organic growth targets

Ambitious buy-and-build comms group Six Degrees has secured a £25m credit boost as it pursues aggressive growth.

The cash injection, secured with Clydesdale Bank, will provide additional funding to support the Group’s strategy of organic and acquisitive growth in the managed data services market.

Six Degrees was launched last October by the team behind telecoms player SpiriTel with an initial £60m investment from SpiriTel backer Penta Capital. It was founded on a trio of acquisitions: datacentre provider UKSolutions, MPLS specialist NetworkFlow and voice player Protel.

Ronnie Smith, chief finance officer at Six Degrees, said: “I am pleased that Clydesdale Bank has demonstrated its ongoing support to Six Degrees Group. This is testament to how successful the Group has been in executing its strategic plan and we are now at a run rate of £30m revenue and £9m trading EBITDA.

“This represents comfortable double-digit organic growth and we have delivered well over £1m in cross-sales in less than six months, proving that our model is working superbly well. In a challenging economic environment we are seeing increasing demand for our range of hosting and cloud services.”

Mark Hull, director of corporate and structured finance at Clydesdale Bank, heaped praise on the growing firm.

“We have established an excellent relationship with the directors of Six Degrees Group over a number of years and this latest extension of our support further enhances the successful partnership we have developed with the company," he said.

“Alastair and his team have a proven track record of success and have continually demonstrated an ability to exceed performance targets. We look forward to working closely with them as they roll out the ambitious plans they have for the coming year.”