Onecom has acquired Olive Communications to create a £140m-revenue reseller.
Onecom claims the deal will make it the biggest B2B mobile, fixed-line and cloud specialist in the UK, providing services to more than 500,000 corporate and business end-users this year.
The acquisition follows a £100m investment in Onecom from mid-market private equity firm LDC in July 2019 to fuel the company’s three-year growth strategy.
Olive’s Chief Executive, Martin Flick, has been appointed CEO of Onecom Group with founder of Onecom, Darren Ridge, remaining a significant shareholder in a Non-Executive Director role.
Darren Ridge, Non-Executive Director of Onecom Group, said: “We have seen Olive as healthy competitors for years, and their market reputation for delivering cloud services is unrivalled.
“The inevitable changes to working patterns across the UK and globally as a result of the pandemic have accelerated the need for integrated cloud communications and significantly increased demand for transformation and digitalisation.
“Bringing these two businesses together will significantly benefit our customers, partners and stakeholders and employees”
“I look forward to supporting Martin and the leadership team in this next chapter of our journey together.”
Buckinghamshire-based Olive Communications has grown through organic and acquisitive means to more than £31m in annual revenue, pivoting its proposition in 2014 from being ‘mobile-only’ to become the UK’s leading cloud communications provider.
The acquisition brings together two of Vodafone’s most successful strategic partners. Onecom, which has annual sales of over £90m, has been recognised as Vodafone Strategic Partner of the Year for an unrivalled 10 years, while in 2020 Olive was awarded Vodafone’s Innovation Partner of the Year Award.
Martin Flick, CEO of Onecom Group, said: “I’m delighted that Darren and the Onecom board have given me the opportunity to bring these two fantastic businesses together, boasting a combined talent pool that is the envy of the industry. This, coupled with ongoing support from LDC, will supercharge our ambitions.
“Our combined scale, expertise, experience and proximity to customer need affords us the perfect proposition to help customers of all sizes to navigate their journey through the short and long term economic landscape, leveraging technology from our established and emerging strategic partnerships, including Vodafone, Mitel, Google, Microsoft and others.
“Our ultimate objective this year is to help our customers continue to navigate the pandemic, and to be market-ready to transform, adapt and evolve their businesses with innovative cloud communications technologies.”
