Onecom said Olive Communications was its "closest rival" and that the two merging "creates the largest business-to-business mobile, fixed-line and cloud specialist in the UK". It is Onecom's third acquisition since 2019.
With their activities combined Onecom and Olive will provide services to more than 500,000 corporate and business end users this year.
Darren Ridge, non-executive director of Onecom Group said: “I’m really proud of all that we have achieved so far at Onecom in leading the market to deliver exceptional service to our customers and forming strong relationships with key partners.
“We have seen Olive as healthy competitors for years, and their market reputation for delivering cloud services is unrivalled. The inevitable changes to working patterns across the UK and globally as a result of the pandemic have accelerated the need for integrated cloud communications and significantly increased demand for transformation and digitalisation," he continued.
“Bringing these two businesses together will significantly benefit our customers, partners and stakeholders and employees. I look forward to supporting Martin and the leadership team on this next chapter of our journey together.”
The value of the acquisition was not disclosed but it was partly funded with the £100m investment Onecom received from mid-market private equity firm LDC for its three-year growth strategy, in July 2019. Growth capital investor BGF, which invested £10million into Olive in 2016, has exited the business as part of this deal.
Yann Souillard, head of London at LDC, said: “The combination of Olive and Onecom is a force to be reckoned with in the UK B2B telecoms market. At LDC we understand how a buy and build growth strategy can create scale and resilience; we enabled 35 bolt-on acquisitions across our portfolio in 2020 alone.”
On the appointments front Olive’s chief executive Martin Flick will become CEO of Onecom Group, while Darren Ridge, who founded Onecom in 2002, retained his non-executive director role. The newly-expanded Onecom Group will continue to be headquartered at Hampshire, UK.
Flick said: “I’m delighted that Darren and the Onecom board have given me the opportunity to bring these two fantastic businesses together, boasting a combined talent pool that is the envy of the industry. This, coupled with ongoing support from LDC, will supercharge our ambitions.
“Our combined scale, expertise, experience and proximity to customer need affords us the perfect proposition to help customers of all sizes to navigate their journey through the short and long term economic landscape, leveraging technology from our established and emerging strategic partnerships, including Vodafone, Mitel, Google, Microsoft and others."
