Connect Telecom is targeting £20 million in turnover next year driven by further acquisitions and organic growth.
Last week the firm announced its sixth acquisition of the year with Assimilate Communications for a fee of more than £1m.
The deal added more than £2m in turnover to Connect Telecom, now totalling more than £11m. Originally the firm forecast £15m in turnover by the end of its fiscal year but that is now £20m with future acquisitions in 2018.
Director Scott Ritchie (pictured) told Mobile News he expects two more acquisitions to be completed before the end of the year, and another in 2018.
“We have a number of acquisitions lined up for this year and early 2018. Another acquisition is being finalised now, a company in England,” he said.
“On our radar are really successful companies with good management teams who don’t have the scale to deal with the Vodafone machines or big networks anymore. We’re of that scale and we’re growing so quickly that we can support more connections.”
Milestone
Assimilate added 10,000 mobile connections, taking the total to over 60,000. Ritchie said the 100,000 milestone will be hit next year, concurred by fellow director Matthew Brown, claiming “we’ll almost double that with organic growth and more acquisitions”.
All six members of staff from Assimilate will be transferred to Connect Telecom, including managing director Owen Keenan-Lindsey who retains his role.
Assimilate’s base in Dunstable will remain open to better serve connections from London. “It gives us a base for connections we are operating out of London. We’re now able to use Assimilated’s offices to better serve these connections,” Brown said.
Belfast-headquartered Connect Telecom celebrated its 10th anniversary in business this year. It has six other bases across the UK: Aberdeen, Dunstable, Glasgow, Carlisle, Manchester and London. Former BT director Ritchie bought the Belfast dealer in 2015 in a multi-million pound deal.
Accelerate
He said: “Connect Telecom has seen 200 per cent growth outside Northern Ireland with approximately 60 per cent of our business outside the region. Our regional offices based on the mainland allow us to deliver an even better service and add further value to our growing customer base.
“We’ve come a long way from 2015 when I bought the business, going from a £3 million business to where we are now.
“There’s significant consolidation through the industry and the strategy we’ve put in place two years ago is starting to accelerate. “Our strategy to grow organically and in-organically is going really well, growth through the group is going faster than we thought.”
