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We told you so! Daisy Group slurps up Damovo UK

Mainland Euro ops sold to venture capital biz

Daisy Group has confirmed what our readers already knew – it has wolfed down unified comms specialist Damovo UK in its first deal since going private again less than a fortnight ago.

West Sussex-based Microsoft and Cisco Gold badge holder Damovo is the former enterprise sales and services division of Ericsson.

“With strong relationships and an expert team in place, the business is well positioned for growth under our ownership,” said Daisy Group founder and executive chairman Matthew Riley in a canned statement.

Damovo sells and runs voice and data networks for circa 250 customers including BA, DHL, the Bank of England and a bunch of public sector organisations. Damovo – whose fortunes have declined over the past decade – will add scale to Daisy’s existing services operation.

The standalone business was spun out of Ericsson in 2001 and acquired by private equity biz Apax Partners but ran into financial challenges. In 2007 it was offloaded to bondholders including Goldman Sachs and Och-Ziff in a debt for equity swap.

Over the subsequent years Damovo saw revenues decline annually – they slumped to £27.5m in fiscal ’14 and it reported an operating loss of £3.58m.

The ownership of overseas operations for Damovo Europe, which includes Germany, Ireland, Switzerland, Poland, Belgium and the global services business, have transferred to VC Oakley Capital Private Equity II.

Riley will also invest alongside the Fund II and lead the business as executive chairman.

Damovo Europe employs 271 people, selling IP-enabled voice comms, web and video conferencing, enterprise networks, contact centres, cloud services and global managed services. Terms of the sales were not disclosed. ®

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