UKFast's Jones explains why he pulled out of Outsourcery buy

Jones invested £1m of his own money into cloud firm last September

UKFast's CEO Lawrence Jones has said he is happy that he pulled out of the running to buy Outsourcery, citing Vodafone's dominant role in the business and suggestions its top staff are looking to move on as key reasons in making his decision.

Yesterday morning, Outsourcery announced plans to appoint EY as administrator after plans had been agreed to sell assets to GCI Network Solutions. The firm said yesterday that it expected the appointment to be made on the same day, but so far, no further announcements have been made public.

Outsourcery CEO Piers Linney took to Twitter yesterday afternoon and thanked the company's staff.

"An enormous thanks to the Outsourcery team for hard work, taking risks, innovating and creating unique biz for buyer to take forwards," he tweeted.

In reply to a tweet commiserating the "demise" of the company, he said: "It's not a demise - biz is to be sold to a happy new owner. We had plans to keep growing but ran out of fuel and the support required."

Lawrence Jones (pictured), CEO of UKFast, told CRN that he had considered buying the company but pulled out for a variety of reasons in the run up to yesterday's announcement. Prior to that, last September, he invested £1m of his own money into the company.

"Obviously I am disappointed - it was a business which did have potential," he said. "I invested in it a year ago and in that year, they didn't follow my advice or seek help from me as I'd have expected and then just continued to carry on looking for more money to carry on doing the same thing that got them into this mess in the beginning.

"I said ‘look, I am here if you need me for more than just money'. I've got a technology business and we are good operators here. We would have been able to help. But they're running their own business. My job in life is to bet on people. And if you make a mistake, I don't think you throw good money after bad.

He added that there were other "warning signs" about the company which put him off.

"What would I have been buying anyway? That was the question," he said. "I've got a recruitment company here and in any business, the biggest asset is the people. And it doesn't take a genius to work out the people in a business like [Outsourcery] would be nervous about their jobs and consequently the jobs boards are full of people from Outsourcery. We've had a huge number of applications from Outsourcery. So I would imagine a great deal of their top talent will be out there looking or will have moved on.

"I am someone who views people as the greatest asset in any business. I wouldn't want to have bought a business where Vodafone have such a dominant role within in. It's unhealthy and I am quite happy to have pulled out. I have got bigger fish to fry."