Freedom4/Daisy Communications

Small business telecoms provider Daisy Communications is joining AIM following the reverse takeover of Freedom4 Group.

Freedom4, the former internet service provider Pipex until it sold its business to Tiscali, is buying Daisy for £81m in cash and new shares and, at the same time, acquiring another telecoms business, Vialtus, for £42m from its chairman Peter Dubens. The merged company will retain Daisy's name and be led by its current chief executive Matthew Riley, who was assisted by retail entrepreneur Sir Philip Green in the business’s early stages after winning a competition with the Bank of Scotland.

Lancashire-based Daisy is an experienced acquirer, with 24 acquisitions during its eight years of existence and saw operating profits soar 110% to £2.1m in the year to March 2008. 'Daisy and Vialtus are two highly synergistic businesses,’ says Riley. ‘We believe that together they will be able to provide SME and mid-market customers with an effective and attractive one-stop-shop offer, and provide us with the solid foundations for our plans for future growth.'

Freedom4’s entrepreneurial chairman Dubens, whose Oakley private equity vehicle is the Vialtus vendor, believes the deal has a macroeconomic rationale. 'We are seeing an opportunity in the UK telecoms services market at the moment where the fragmented nature and depressed valuations in the sector create conditions which are well-suited for generating value through consolidation.’

The company, which is proposing to raise £83m to complete the deal, is expected to be valued, once the transactions are complete on 21 July, at more than £200m. Freedom4’s shares have swung up from recent levels around 2.25p to a year’s high of 4.39p on the news and could see continued upward momentum. Speculative buy.