Redcentric cutting Calyx jobs - sources

Staff consultation process understood to have started yesterday

Redcentric has begun a redundancy consultation affecting staff at its newly acquired Calyx Managed Services (MS) business, CRN understands.

Redcentric declined to comment, but according to a source close to the matter, redundancy consultations with affected staff started yesterday. Another source claimed staff were informed before the end of last week that they were at risk.

The former Calyx MS business is now owned by Redcentric after a period of significant change at the firm.

In February Calyx's then-backer Better Capital sold it to MXC – the investment vehicle founded by serial channel entrepreneurs Ian Smith and Tony Weaver, the chief executive of Redcentric – for £9m after a bidding war.

The business was then split into three parts, with the carrier services and break-fix arms sold off to Chess and Daisy respectively for £1.8m and £3.75m. The remaining third, Calyx MS, was later acquired by Redcentric.

New Calyx MS owner Redcentric already has five locations in the UK – Reading, Theale, Cambridge, London and its HQ in Harrogate – while Calyx has facilities in London, Manchester and Hyde.

One source told CRN he understood Redcentric was encouraging Calyx's northern staff to transfer to Harrogate.

Adam Davison, director of Cloud Distribution, said he was not surprised by the news of job cuts.

"When a company buys another company it's clearly for a specific reason – it may be the vendors or the services contracts – but you would expect some redundancies as dual roles are consolidated," he said.

Soon after Redcentric snapped up Calyx MS, the former's chief operating officer Fraser Fisher told CRN that the firm carefully considered its acquisition and was keen to only snap up the MS segment for fear of going down the "quick road to ruin" of the buy-and-build model.

Redcentric declined to comment on the redundancy claims.