The auction, according to sources close to Sky News, will purportedly kick off in H1 2018. The report goes on to say that the company “is to appoint investment bankers in the next few weeks to handle a sales process”.
Responding to the reports, a Daisy Group spokesperson told Capacity today: "We do not comment on speculation. Daisy is a privately-owned business and its management team's focus is solely on continuing to build on its position as the UK’s largest independent provider of business communications, IT and cloud services."
The company, which started in 2001 and has carried out over fifty takeovers, went private in 2014, has been very acquisitive over the last few years since it was taken out of its public status in 2014 by the private equity companies Toscafund and Penta Capital, which paid $494 million in 2015. Daisy went into debt by £20 million to fund its £165 million acquisition for Alternative Networks last year. Last year also saw the company sign a six-year £70 million cloud communications partnership.
Daisy has been prepared to take risks in the past. Reuters reported in late October 2016 that Daisy 'threw in the towel’ on a new bond after four days of marketing the B2/B rated £385 million fixed and floating-rate notes because investors demanded higher yields than the telecoms and IT services firm was willing to pay.
In other news, Daisy Group announced earlier this month that it had selected the Microsoft Azure cloud platform to fuel its modernisation programme to reshape both the business and the services it offers to customers.
