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Elitetele.com acquires engineering partner
Telephony player makes its first acquisition of the year indicating that there could be more to come
At the start of last month unified comms specialist Elitetele.com set up an acquisition team and earmarked millions that could be spent on growing the business.
In just over a month the firm has made its first move purchasing Support Span group, trading as HighSpan, with is a telephony system specialist with an expertise in converged voice and data networks.
Despite the team being set up last month this marks the 16th acquisition the firm has made since 2008, with it being one of the main ways the telephony player has extended its market reach.
There are also indications that this is by no means the end and Rob Burbidge, CFO, Elite Group and Alex Cliffe, commercial director, will be on the look out for more opportunities with the acquisitions team has been given £20m to spend. The terms of the Support Span deal have not been disclosed.
The two firms have a relationship when Elite sub contracted its engineering needs to a telephone hardware, installation and maintenance out to Support Span.
“It made perfect sense to acquire Support Span as we knew them well and they have been a trusted business partner for many years. As a result, we understand how they work, their skillset and expertise, and in turn they understand how we work and our clients," said Matt Newing, founder of Elitetele.com.
"By acquiring Support Span we are bringing on board a highly sought after and experienced engineering team, together with account managers and contract managers who live and breathe telephony systems and maintenance support from whom we know our customers will benefit," he added.
The view from Rick Pearce, founder and managing director at Support Span Group, was that it also was a relationship ready to take to the next stage.
“We’ve worked well with Elite for years so it made sense when we came to look at selling the business to talk to them. The combined group will now be able to qualify for Mitel gold status accreditation which will benefit our customers and Elite's by providing a more competitive offer," he said.
