Daisy Group boss wins M&A Award

21/05/2010 Robert Tyerman

Matthew Riley, chief executive officer of telecoms supplier Daisy Group, has been named dealmaker of the year in the 2010 M&A awards.

M&A Deals, a sponsor of the awards, is part of AIM-quoted Vitesse Media, which organised yesterday’s event at London’s Millennium Mayfair hotel in Grosvenor Square. A distinguished panel of judges chose AIM-quoted Daisy as the UK’s most persistently acquisitive company, singling out Riley for overseeing the £20.5 million buy-outs of Eurotel and AT Communications.

In all, the Uxbridge-based company, where Riley has a stake of some 24 per cent, completed the integration of five companies in the 15 months to March, delivering £17 million of synergies, and says the integration of two more is on schedule. Daisy, whose shares have doubled over the past 12 months, paid £10.45 million in February for de-listed BNS Telecom Group.

News broadcaster Katie Derham presented the awards, which since 2007 have celebrated the achievements of management teams, advisers and financiers in some of the most testing market conditions in living memory. Other winners include household products group CeDo for Buy-Out of the Year, a £52 million deal by Rutland Partners; Armstrong Transaction Services as Due Diligence Provider of the Year; and Israeli-owned Leumi ABL as Alternative Finance Provider of the Year.