Rumours appeared over the weekend, originally in The Sunday Times then elsewhere, that Daisy Group is planning a £1.4bn flotation. Daisy is one of the UK’s biggest independent telecoms services companies and has been showing strong growth patterns lately.
The company has been very acquisitive over the last few years since it was taken out of its public status by the private equity companies Toscafund and Penta Capital who paid $494m in 2015. Daisy paid £165m for Alternative Networks last year.
Daisy has a stable future with some very large customers in the UK retail, brewing and financial arenas. It went into debt by £20m to fund its acquisition of Alternative Networks. Since the group started in 2001 it has carried out over fifty takeovers.
Daisy Group refused to make any comment on the speculation.
Daisy has been prepared to take risks in the past. Reuters reported in late October of 2016 that Daisy ‘threw in the towel’ on a new bond after four days of marketing the B2/B rated £385m fixed and floating-rate notes because investors demanded higher yields than the telecoms and IT services firm was willing to pay.
