
Business ISP Gamma Communications has confirmed recent speculation that they’re currently engaged in preliminary talks with several potential bidders (currently unidentified), which could result in a takeover of the UK telecoms and IT provider. As of today, the provider has a market capitalization of £752.88m.
The news comes half a year after Gamma signed a 6-year commitment with B2B telecoms company O2 Daisy, which extended an existing agreement and was expanded to reflect the recent merger between VMO2 Business (Virgin Media and O2) and Daisy Group (full details). A 7-year wholesale revenue agreement is included in that. The deal also included the transition Gamma’s UK SME direct customer base to O2Daisy, with Gamma’s remaining UK direct sales channels consisting of digital channels and providing solutions to enterprise customers.
Suffice to say that it’s been a busy period for Gamma and the latest company announcement suggests that there may be a significant takeover looming on the horizon too.
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Gamma’s Statement in Response to Speculation
The Board of Gamma (“Gamma” or the “Company”) notes the recent press speculation and confirms that it is in preliminary discussions with a number of interested counterparties (the “Potential Offerors”) with a view to establishing whether such Potential Offerors might be willing to put forward a proposal that would deliver greater value to shareholders than pursuing a standalone independent strategy.
Discussions with the Potential Offerors are at an early stage and as such, there can be no certainty that an offer will be made for the Company, nor as to the terms on which any such offer might be made.
The Executive of the Panel on Takeovers and Mergers has granted a dispensation from the requirements of Rules 2.4(a) and 2.4(b) of the Code, such that the Company is not required to identify in this announcement any of the Potential Offerors with which the Company is in talks, or from which an approach has been received, unless that potential offeror has been specifically identified in any rumour or speculation.
As a consequence of this announcement, an “offer period” has now commenced in respect of the Company in accordance with the Code and the attention of shareholders is drawn to the disclosure requirements of Rule 8 of the Code, which are summarised below.
A further announcement will be made if and when appropriate.
The individual responsible for arranging the release of this announcement on behalf of Gamma is Rachael Matzopoulos, Company Secretary.
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Not overly surprised. Their SIP trunks are solid but everything is quite dated now.
We moved away from the Gamma Horizon hosted platform 3 years because it was dated then and didn’t keep up with other hosted VoIP platforms for features, UI/UX, and price. As far as I’m aware, it’s still not changed much other than a (added paid for extra) integration with Cisco Webex.
I’m not following your logic. They are growing year on year, making record profits and someone is thinking of buying them.
@Anon “past performance is no guarantee of future returns”.
The comment on their current product offering suggests that their current revenue might be generated from assets that are in need of some investment to keep them competitive. That therefore suggests their future prospects may not be as rosy.
Maybe they’ll get taken over by a company that has a engineering team who understands IPv6
Their engineering team understands IPv6 very well. Are you perhaps thinking of the product teams?
As an employee I cannot say this is a shock, 6 months ago we are told to not listen rumours our jobs were under risk but only a few weeks ago we are now told our jobs are at risk as operations will be moving to the Philippines. As usual the frontline workforce were last to know about the job loses and now only being told about this today.