BNS Telecom's new owner reassures workers

Apr 15 2010 by John Hill, The Journal

THE company that has taken over Prudhoe telecoms company BNS has reassured staff that its Northumberland offices will remain open.

Ambitious national communications company Daisy Group acquired BNS at the end of March, raising questions about the future of 140 employees in Prudhoe and across the North East.

But BNS interim managing director Chris Jagusz said that the company was keen to tap into the IT telephony expertise offered by the team and that Daisy will now be getting the Northumberland centre to work with its bases in Lancashire, London and the Midlands.

He said: “Daisy has been really impressed by the skills, capabilities and experience within the team and is keen to keep that within the company. IT telephony is also something that no other part of Daisy Group has, and it’s something in which BNS specialises. It has quite a large internet telephony customer base which largely deals with business.

“We have about 100 people on that site itself and another 40 around the North East. There are a very small number of jobs – less than 10 in fact – that are at risk in the office, and we will be doing our very best to retain them within the group.”

Daisy took over BNS for £10.5m, bringing in a telecoms firm that handles more than 30 million calls a month. BNS was established in 1996 in Prudhoe and has 2,139 customers in the region. Mr Jagusz has been looking at BNS “in detail” with the Daisy Group over the last few weeks “to understand how it works”.

He said: “When you take on a company, you don’t want to alienate the customers and there are some things that BNS does very well. It’s not just going to be about retaining, it’s also about creating a site from which we can grow.

“The acquisition brings with it a couple of very significant benefits. The business has over 8,000 business customers and a sizeable mobile business within BNS based in Birmingham. There’s also the internet capability which can be used right across Daisy’s business base.

“BNS was a superb fit for Daisy’s business plan. Daisy wants to be the alternative to BT for small business customers. It’s grown from a turnover of £40m two years ago to £250m. It was listed on AIM last year and has since made five sizeable acquisitions.

“It’s no secret that Daisy is very acquisitive. It has ambitions to reach turnover of £500m within 12 months. We’re halfway there now. You achieve organic growth by cross-selling across your existing customer base. We’ve got a broader platform now by which to achieve that, and the other growth will be achieved through acquisition.”

The BNS deal is Daisy’s 29th acquisition. CEO Gareth Kirkwood said: “We believe there is a strong business here and we have realised greater synergies than expected, with a cost effective operation in the North East.

“We have been continually impressed by the quality and enthusiasm of the people at BNS and I am pleased to say that we really do see Prudhoe as being a key part of the Daisy growth story going forward.”