Solihull-based Wavenet's presence in the East Anglia region will be more strongly felt following its acquisition of Norfolk comms provider APR Telecoms for an undisclosed sum. The deal builds on Wavenet's acquisitions last year of Manchester provider of network and cloud services Talk Internet and Norfolk-based Swains. Both deals followed a £30m investment in Wavenet by Beech Tree Private Equity.
The combined acquisitions significantly increase Wavenet's geographical reach, scale and resources while bringing its UC and IT solutions and services to ready made customer bases.
APR Telecoms was founded in 1994 and provides telephony, data, VoIP and cloud solutions. Its acquisition also boosts Wavenet's engineering and technical support capabilities.
According to APR Telecoms MD Andy Rackham the Wavenet deal was a natural next step in his strategy and marks a new beginning for their existing long-term partnership.
"Wavenet was our largest supplier and billed customers on our behalf, so we had built an excellent relationship through years of trust and support," explained Rackham.
"This made the process of selling much less stressful, financially attractive and better for our customers and staff."
Wavenet CEO Bill Dawson (pictured) added: "Our increased capabilities and skill sets will enhance the customer service experience and give APR Telecoms clients access to Wavenet's expanded product sets, particularly in unified communications and IT services."
Wavenet began its commercial life in 2000 as a lines and calls business. Mobile services were introduced following the acquisition of Centralcom in 2009 and a VoIP service was launched in 2010 soon after the Titan Technology buy.
Wavenet's Connectivity options were then boosted with the addition of IZR Solutions in 2011, a deal that strengthened its core network.
Three years later Wavenet bagged UK Data IT to add TPS screening compliance and dialler solutions, while the acquisition of Next IS introduced inbound number and PCI compliant services.
In 2015 the company launched BroadCloud and partnered with Level 3 for DDoS attack protection the following year.
Today the company boasts a proprietary carrier grade network with a broadening product set, especially in UC and IT services.