www.comms-dealer.com
NEWS
Zen Internet MONEY MATTERS
Philip Carse
drives faster
Westcon joins
There
was
broadband
with Siemens
contrasting
WESTCON Group has broad-
fortunes
ened its convergence proposition
for mobile
by joining the Siemens Enterprise
Communications (SEN Group)
companies
Go Forward! programme.
As a SEN Group Value Added
distributor Westcon Group now
offers all of Siemens’ open, IP-based
comms solutions to its reseller base,
BUSINESS TELECOMMUNICATIONS EQUITY NEWS
including OpenScape Office.
Results and trading updates over the last month
Andrew Saunders
The agreement enables Westcon
suggest that the macro economic picture is stabilising
Grant & Hanson
ZEN Internet has launched new to expand its existing range of
for UK fixed line telcos. Probably the most positive was faster broadband services offer- unified communications and con- Lars-Ole Hansen, Head of
Maintel (shares +16.5% in the last four weeks), which ing download speeds of up to verged communications solutions EMEA Indirect Sales, SEN Group,
said that profits will be ahead of expectations, helped 20Mbps and upload speeds of up across Europe. VARs in the UK, added: “This agreement will allow
by improved engineer utilisation and cost cutting. to 1Mbps. France, Germany, Italy, Norway, SEN Group to indirectly better
Andrew Saunders, Head of Denmark and Benelux now have support IT resellers across the
Several companies reported that trading has been Product Management and Mark- access to a converged data, voice continent with increased training,
in line with expectations, including Alternative eting, said: “We are retaining our and services portfolio. education and an end-to-end com-
Networks (shares up 8.9%), Daisy Group (+13.8%) and one month rolling contract and David Grant, Vice President for munications infrastructure.”
Kcom (+21.6%). For AltNet, this means second half will not be charging any extra for Europe at Westcon Convergence, Westcon will offer SEN Group’s
revenues and EBITDA of around £44.8 million and £4.4 the new services. We never have, commented: “As unified commu- Enterasys networking solutions and
million respectively, against £45.6 million and £4.4 and never will, traffic shape a cus- nications becomes a viable proposi- Siemens SME communications
million in the first half. Daisy also said that it expects tomer connection, ensuring cus- tion for many European organi- solutions from October 2009, with
all acquired businesses to be rebranded Daisy by tomers experience the new faster sations, it is important that we the wider portfolio of solutions,
the end of the year, and it will continue to seek speeds at whatever time of day.” can offer a comprehensive product including flagship IP-based UC
acquisitions (we estimate £22 million of net cash). Saunders noted that Zen has portfolio to be able to support platform OpenScape Voice, avail-
‘invested heavily’ in upgrading resellers and help end users address able from 2010.
COLT (+5.5%) reported third quarter revenues and its network to connect with BT’s their operational needs. With Siemens’ input, Westcon
EBITDA of 400.1 million and 79.5 million euro, against 21CN using ADSL2+ broadband “This partnership with Siemens and its resellers can now offer a
401.2 million and 79.1 million euro in the second technology. And to mark the launch will allow us to support our base complete solution, from planning,
quarter, with higher margin data and managed Zen is running a competition to of resellers with an expanded level designing and surveying a new IP-
services revenues offsetting falling, lower margin voice win either a day driving supercars of converged communications based communications infrastruc-
revenues. COLT also announced a major contract or relaxing in a spa. New custom- technologies, to support a rising ture, through to the necessary staff
with Celesio (a German pharmaceutical company), ers signing up will automatically be demand for IP telephony and ulti- training and support to implement
covering 2,500 locations in 14 European countries. entered into the prize draw. mately unified communications.” the technology portfolio.
SpiriTel’s results to April 09 showed a decline in
wholesale revenues, but growth in higher margin retail Chess Telecom bags calls & lines
business revenues. Second half revenues and EBITDA
were £8.66 million and £0.64 million respectively,
business of XTel Communications
against £11.06 million and £0.87 million in the first
half. SpiriTel (shares -18.5%) also announced a £6.5 CHESS Telecom has acquired the Chess Chief Executive, David
million debt for equity conversion at the current calls and lines business of Bradford- Pollock, has more customer bases in
share price, which will more than halve net debt based XTel Communications, his sights: “This is our fourth acqui-
and enable it to continue its acquisition strategy. bringing the total up to 35 acquisi- sition this year, and we are con-
tions in the past five years. tinuing to consolidate the telecoms
There was contrasting fortunes for mobile companies, Under the terms of the agree- sector. Expect to see more Chess
with mobile banking provider Monitise (0%) announcing ment, XTel will continue to main- acquisition news coming soon.”
one million subscribers across the UK and US, and tain the customers’ phone systems, Richard Btesh, Chess Director,
distribution deals with 3UK and T Mobile UK; while while building a further customer commented: “This success is the
mobile VoIP provider Vyke (-32.2%) announced a base to sell to Chess at a later date. result of a combination of good
poor set of interim results and a potentially highly This acquisition will add approxi- integration and customer retention,
dilutive £10 million equity rescue funding line. mately £500K in revenue to Chess’ the flexibility to tailor deals to fit in
2010 turnover. with the sellers’ requirements.
Philip Carse is an independent telecoms equity Adrian Jackson, MD of XTel, “Rapid market consolidation
research analyst and consultant. He writes an industry commented: “We knew this flex-
David Pollock
means our list is always growing
blog focusing on UK quoted telecoms companies ible deal would give us the best the transition will be a smooth one and our flexibility and reputation
(http://teleq.blogspot.com).
www.teleq.co.uk value for us, and more importantly, and our customers will be more enables us to approach increasingly
n
our customers. I am very confident than satisfied.” significant targets.”
AdEPT Telecom plc - WIN A SHARE OF £50,000 CASH - ring 0800 652 4777
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6 COMMS DEALER NOVEMBER 2009
www.comms-dealer.com
PG 6 News.indd 1 29/10/09 11:41:37
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