Solar Communications makes first of two acquisitions this year
Wiltshire-based firm sets sights on second deal before the end of 2017
Comms provider Solar Communications has completed its first acquisition of 2017, snapping up Cardiff-based TWL Limited.
Solar made two acquisitions in 2016 - adding Response Data Communications and Denwa to the group - and CEO John Whitty said in April that the firm expects to make a further two this year.
Speaking to CRN following its latest acquisition, Whitty said that the deal will bolster Solar's status as a Mitel Gold partner, while also boosting its presence in Wales.
He added that Solar is also seeing larger customers ask it to take on more of their services, which the TWL acquisition will allow it to manage.
"We've recently been winning some big deals with some larger organisations and they're asking us to take on other services for them as well, such as cabling, local area network management and their WiFi management," he said. "We're finding that we're now able to attract the high mid-market and small enterprise customers, and they're skills that TWL can bring to us immediately.
"South Wales is an area that's under-tapped and we would like to go down there and make hay. With the relationships that the guys down there have, and with our portfolio, we think there's a lot of mileage in being there.
Solar recently filed its full accounts with Companies House, with revenue for the year ending 31 December 2016 up 11 per cent to £14.8m. Whitty however said that this is not representative of the business' true revenue because it only included a few months of the revenues from last year's acquired companies.
Whitty added that Solar is expecting to prosper following Mitel's acquisition of ShoreTel, with the Wiltshire-based firm currently the only ShoreTel Platinum Partner outside the US.
In terms of future acquisitions, he said he is still confident Solar will complete the second of the two planned acquisitions this year.
"We will do acquisitions as they become available and they make strategic sense," he said. "We have a pipeline that we're working through.
"We said that we'd like to see two acquisitions a year and we've got plenty of time to get that in."