Comms Dealer

Oakley Capital Private Equity has acquired a significant majority of the shares in the European companies owned and operated by Damovo II Sarl.

Matthew Riley, founder of Daisy Group, will be investing alongside Fund II and will lead the businesses as Executive Chairman.

The businesses that have been acquired are Damovo's operations in Germany, Ireland, Switzerland, Poland, Belgium and Damovo's Global Services business (collectively 'Damovo Europe').

Damovo Europe employs 271 people across its 14 locations in continental Europe.  

Oakley Capital Private Equity has a track record in the telecoms, UCC and adjacent sectors through its investments in Daisy Group, Host Europe Group and intergenia - investments that generated returns of 35 times, 2.4 times and 2.5 times respectively for Oakley Capital Private Equity.

The particular attractions of investing in Damovo Europe include managed services revenue making up 50% of revenues, with a strategy to increase this proportion going forward; a reputation for delivering customer satisfaction; he opportunity for significant revenue and margin growth through investment and economies of scale; the opportunity to back a strong and experienced management team led by Riley in a European roll-up strategy, replicating the success of Daisy Group .

Rebecca Gibson, Partner of Oakley Capital Private Equity, said: "Damovo Europe is already well established in a number of European markets and the fact that the worldwide Unified Communications market is expected to be worth in excess of $75bn by 2020 with significant growth expected to come from within Europe, makes Damovo Europe an obvious choice to add to Oakley's portfolio.

"I am particularly pleased that Matt Riley will be investing alongside us and will be Executive Chairman. He has an exceptional record of valuation creation in the sector."

Riley added: "The growth opportunity in Unified Communications over the coming three-five years is significant and Damovo Europe is perfectly positioned to materially grow its share of this expanding market.  

"It is an organisation that customers believe delivers high quality communications solutions and I am personally very excited about the future for the company."

Distributor ScanSource has posted a record quarter following its acquisition late last year of Imago, a distributor of video and voice solutions.

"Our two worldwide segments achieved very good sales results with 9% year-over-year net sales growth," said Mike Baur, CEO, ScanSource.

"We are pleased to report that the acquisition of Imago has gone very well and contributed to the quarter's excellent results."

Net sales for the period ended December 31st 2014 totalled $807.0m, a 9.0% increase over net sales of $740.6m for the quarter ended December 31, 2013.

Excluding the translation impact of foreign currencies, net sales increased 11.1% year-over-year. The increase in net sales included the acquisition of Imago during September 2014.

Operating income for quarter totalled $26.0m, compared with $27.5m in the prior year quarter. Excluding adjustments, non-GAAP operating income for the quarter ended December 31, 2014 increased 1.7% over the prior year quarter to $29.4m from $28.9m.

BT has posted revenues of £4,475m in its Q3 2014 results with adjusted EBITDA of £814m.

Gavin Patterson, Chief Executive, said: "This quarter we have delivered good growth in profit before tax and strong free cash flow.

"Openreach achieved the highest growth in the number of landlines on record. It was also our best ever quarter for fibre broadband net additions All the major communications providers are responding to the strong market demand for fibre broadband, helping to drive take-up in what is already a very competitive market.

"Our superfast fibre broadband network now covers around three quarters of the UK.

"We're announcing large-scale pilots this summer of ultrafast broadband with G.fast.

"We now think we can deploy this technology at scale which will enable us to deliver ultrafast speeds of up to 500Mbps to most of the UK within a decade.

"I am pleased that we have agreed the 2014 triennial funding valuation and recovery plan with the Trustee of the BT Pension Scheme.

The funding deficit is £7.0bn at 30 June 2014, an increase from 2011 reflecting the low interest rate environment. Over the next three years we will pay £2.0bn into the scheme, which is less than we paid over the previous three years. We have agreed a 16 year recovery plan reflecting the strength and sustainability of our future cash flow generation.

"Mobility is a key growth area for us. We are making good progress on our due diligence in relation to a possible acquisition of EE and will make further announcements in due course.

"In the meantime, our Consumer mobile launch plans remain on track."

BT CEO Gavin Patterson has set out the company's ambition to transform the UK broadband landscape from superfast to ultrafast.

He revealed that BT plans to deliver much faster broadband for homes and small businesses via a widespread deployment of 'G.fast', a technology that BT will test in two pilot locations starting this summer.

G.fast will help BT deliver ultrafast speeds of up to 500Mbps to most of the UK within a decade.

Deployment will start in 2016/17, subject to the pilots being successful.

Early tests show G.fast is capable of delivering a range of speeds depending on how close the technology is to a customer's premises.

BT expects to offer initial speeds of a few hundred megabits per second to millions of homes and businesses by 2020. Speeds will then increase to around 500Mbps as further industry standards are secured and new kit is developed.

Patterson said: "We believe G.fast is the key to unlocking ultrafast speeds and we are prepared to upgrade large parts of our network should the pilots prove successful.

"That upgrade will depend however on there continuing to be a stable regulatory environment that supports investment.

"The UK is ahead of its major European neighbours when it comes to broadband and we need to stay ahead as customer demands evolve. G.fast will allow us to do that by building on the investment we have made in fibre to date. It will transform the UK broadband landscape from superfast to ultrafast in the quickest possible timeframe."

The two pilots will start this Summer in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire and Gosforth, Newcastle.

Around 4,000 homes and businesses will be able to participate in the pilots which will explore what speeds can be delivered using G.fast at scale.

The pilots will build on recent tests at BT's world innovation centre at Adastral Park, Suffolk.

These have shown that G.fast has the potential to deliver significant speed increases from existing and new fibre street cabinets as well as from other points closer to the customer.

This is an important development as it means the technology can be deployed in a more efficient and rapid manner than previously thought.

BT is likely to deploy G.fast from various points in the network, with the pilots allowing it to assess various roll out options. It is also planning to develop a premium fibre broadband service for those residential and business customers who want even faster broadband, of up to 1Gbps.

BT is currently expanding the reach of its fibre network by working with the public sector across the UK.

Its network already passes almost 22 million premises - around three quarters of the UK - and is open to all communications providers on an equal basis. Its expansion will help the UK to boast 95 per cent coverage for fibre broadband within the next few years.

Daisy Group has acquired Damovo UK, a provider of UC solutions to the public and private sector serving more than 250 organisations, including a number of high profile customers in aviation, transportation and government. As a strategic technology partner of Cisco, Mitel and Microsoft, its portfolio includes unified communications and collaboration, enterprise networks, contact centres, as well as cloud services and global managed services.

Daisy Group founder and Executive Chairman Matthew Riley (pictured) said: "This is the first acquisition we have undertaken since Daisy's privatisation and enhances our capability in the enterprise space. With strong vendor relationships and an expert team in place, the business is well positioned for growth under our ownership.

"The converging world of traditional telecoms and IT continues to present exciting opportunities and with a rapidly expanding cloud and managed services division the acquisition of this highly scalable UK business is a clear strategic fit for the Group."

RELATED NEWS: Oakley Capital Private Equity acquires Damovo Europe - Matt Riley appointed Executive Chairman

Avaya has launched new cloud services following a collaboration with VMware.

The enterprise-class hybrid cloud services for customer and team engagement leverage the VMware vCloud Air platform to deliver a flexible approach to implementing solutions that seamlessly bridge private and public clouds, said the vendor.

Avaya Hybrid Engagement as a Service includes Avaya Engagement Solutions and the required VMware vCloud Air resources to host the solution in a usage-based model.

"This new set of cloud services from Avaya provides additional flexibility and cost efficiency to enterprise customers who want to take advantage of a public cloud model for our customer and team engagement solutions," said Joe Manuele, vice president, SI/SP, Alliances and Cloud, Avaya.

"Avaya and VMware provide a services solution that extends strategic investments in private cloud unified communications and contact centre applications with the flexibility and reliability of a public cloud platform."

Ajay Patel, VP Application Services, vCloud Air, VMware, said. "VMware vCloud Air becomes a seamless extension of an enterprise customer's private cloud, allowing critical applications to be moved between cloud environments, and delivering on the operational, technical and licensing requirements of enterprise customers."

UK satellite and triple-play provider Sky intends to launch an MVNO on O2's network in 2016 in a deal that includes LTE.

Martin Scott, Head of Analysys Mason's Consumer Services research practice, said: "This move will leave Vodafone and TalkTalk with more apparent under development in their portfolio.

"With a potential tie-up between EE and BT in the works, this move further evolves the UK telecoms market into one of a limited number of converged 'big hitters'.

"Sky could become a market disruptor, especially if BT's appetite for change is dulled by the acquisition of EE.

"BT has a desire for disruption. It has followed the launch of BT Sport with an 'inside-out' business model for mobile operations, with the fixed network playing a leading role in supporting and delivering mobile services.

"By acquiring EE, BT would become the largest fixed operator and one of the largest mobile operators, with little incentive to disrupt the quad-play market (it would have the most to lose).

"Sky has previously proved its ability and willingness to disrupt the telecoms market, notably its low-price high-speed broadband services - quad-play, and converged fixed-mobile services, could be Sky's next logical move."

IDC estimates that global PC shipments fell 2.4% yr/yr in Q4 to 80.8 million - a bigger decline than Q3 and Q2's 1.7%, but better than its expectations for a 4.8% drop. Gartner is more positive, estimating shipments rose 1% to 83.7 million.

Both analysts say that emerging markets, where tablet cannibalisation remains a major issue, remain in worse shape than developed markets. IDC also says that commercial PC demand (boosted earlier this year by the ending of Windows XP support) has slowed, and that "market progress has been fueled by low-priced systems, including growth of Chromebooks and [Microsoft's] promotion of Windows 8 + Bing.

The US consumer market is expected to return to positive growth in 2015, aided by slowing tablet demand and the Windows 10 launch. IDC believes all top-5 vendors gained share from rivals with less size. A quarter after cracking the top 5 for the first time with a 6.3% share, Apple's unit share is believed to have risen to 7.1% (+130 bps yr/yr) on the back of 4.9 million shipments (+18.9%). Given higher ASPs, revenue share might be around 15%.

Market leader Lenovo's share rose 140 bps to 19.9%; #2 HP's rose 300 bps to 19.7%; #3 Dell's rose 140 bps to 13.5%; #4 Acer's rose 40 bps to 7.7%. Non-top 5 firms saw their share drop 740 bps to 32.2%, with their shipments declining 20.7%. We await Intel's results later this week, with interest.

In a channel revamp Citrix has introduced Citrix Solution Advisors (CSA) as part of a new scheme that encourages partners to focus on their particular specialisations.

Partners will be offered an opportunity to access Citrix technical expertise in the areas of virtualisation, mobility management and networking. Also, Citrix Specialisations will reward partners for their technical competency, sales capability and service delivery.

Under the scheme, the company will offer almost 9,000 Citrix Solution Advisors along with new benefits, adjusted revenue requirements and simplified certifications.

Both parts of the programme, CSA Programme and Specialisations, have been launched while the two other 'pillars' are expected to be rolled out later in the year.

The additional pillars refer to field and partner collaboration focused on engagement between Citrix and partners' teams; and partner enablement across the customer lifecycle with new tools, resources and programmes.

Arrow has added Oracle Cloud services to its portfolio and is set to roll out the service to the US and extend to Europe.

Sean Kerins, President of Arrow's Global Enterprise Computing Solutions Business, said: "This agreement represents a significant addition for solution providers seeking to move up the stack."

Through the global agreement, Arrow will offer Oracle's applications, cloud programmes and enablement services through the ArrowSphere cloud services platform.

"There are many corners of the market and globe Oracle simply cannot reach," said Bruce Chumley, Group VP, Worldwide Alliances and Channels, Oracle.

"Our success relies on our partners' ability to sell and implement Oracle Cloud services in the broad market. For this reason, we continue to invest more resources in helping partners maximize their cloud-based opportunities, in turn, extending the opportunities for our customers."