Daisy tight-lipped on auction rumours

Comms and IT powerhouse gearing up to start £1.5bn sale process, according to Sky News report

Daisy is remaining tight-lipped on rumours that it is gearing up to auction the business for up to £1.5bn.

According to a Sky News report, the IT, telecoms and cloud provider is poised to appoint investment bankers in the "next few weeks" to handle a sale process that will start in the first half of 2018.

Founded in 2001, Daisy has grown rapidly from a sub-£100m SMB telecoms supplier into a £700m-revenue powerhouse through a series of acquisitions, notably Damovo, Phoenix IT and Alternative Networks.

In a statement sent to CRN, a spokesman for Daisy Group said: "We do not comment on speculation. Daisy is a privately owned business and its management team's focus is solely on continuing to build on its position as the UK's largest independent provider of business communications, IT and cloud services."

Speculation over Daisy's future ownership has been rife since the firm was taken private by its founder Matthew Riley at the start of 2015, with a second IPO being mooted as a potential option at one stage.

In an interview with CRN earlier this year, Daisy CEO Neil Muller indicated that Daisy would step back from the M&A trail, arguing that it had amassed the necessary capability to achieve speedy organic growth.

The addition of most recent acquisition, Alternative Networks, has super-charged Daisy's direct-selling midmarket arm into a £320m business, Muller said. Its SMB arm, which sells both direct and through partners, and its channel-only enterprise arm, contribute a further £300m and £100m to the total, he added at the time.