Vodafone partner aiming to purchase fixed line and mobile rivals in order to increase base to over 25,000
Vodafone platinum partner Cortel has outlined a 12-month multi-million-pound strategy to acquire other fixed and mobile dealers, as it looks to increase its base to more than 25,000.
The London-based unified communications provider, part of the Corporate Telecom Group, has a connection base of 10,000 mobile – with the majority of those connected to Vodafone – and 10,000 fixed-line.
Cortel was upgraded from Vodafone’s gold tier to platinum last month, having achieved specific targets since VPS was launched in September.
Its managing director and founder Neville Sheen (pictured) said he is now actively seeking opportunities to acquire smaller firms to boost customer numbers in both fixed and mobile, and is willing to spend up to 1 million per company.
Sheen said the company is targeting dealers with a good turnover, positive growth curves in terms of customer spend, and a base of between 1,000 and 5,000. Sheen said economies of scale and a full unified communications offering are increasingly important for firms to survive in B2B communications delivery.
As part of its plans, the company also set targets to increase turnover from its current 3.5 million, to about 5 million within a 12-month period.
Sheen said: “Our main focus for the future is to buy in companies that have the level of expertise we want.
“We have banks who want to help us purchase companies. There are a surprising number of companies who do not realise their value at the moment.”
“In the mobile telecoms business, and in systems and in minutes, unless you are really well combined, or at least
bigger, you are going to fail.
You cannot compete in one or the other.”
