02 Mar 2020

ICON Corporate Finance advised the shareholders of Exactive Holdings on its sale to Gamma Communications PLC. Gamma is a UK listed, £1.2bn market cap, provider of technology-based communication services.

Exactive is a Unified Communications specialist based in the UK with an off-shore centre in Poland and is one of the leading Microsoft Teams Voice Partners. It has clients across both public and enterprise sectors, including London Stock Exchange Group and the Guinness Partnership.

Exactive enables customers to fast-track their digital transformation by helping them transition from legacy telephone systems to cloud based Microsoft Teams telephony. It has deep expertise in Unified Communications as a Service “UCaaS” and has developed a multi-tenant Microsoft Teams PSTN routing platform, Cloud UCX™, enabling customers to use the public telephone network direct from Teams. This direct routing capability offers seamless integration without the need for additional on-premise equipment, licensing, or a site visit.

Andrew Taylor, Chief Executive of Gamma, commented on the acquisition: “UCaaS is an ever evolving and rapidly growing market that we plan to be at the heart of, across all customer environments. Exactive helps us address a part of the market that is already embedded in a Microsoft ecosystem and this will be an essential part of our UCaaS strategy in the years ahead.”

Scott Millar, Chief Executive of Exactive, commented: “I can thoroughly recommend Brian and his team at ICON. He ran a tight and competitive exit process for us, which ultimately led to high number of formal offers. That not only gave us terrific choice but also useful leverage in negotiations. Maximising our shareholder value was important, but getting the right cultural fit was also very important to us as owner/managers. Gamma ticked all the boxes. Brian was invaluable in driving up the value and managing the exit process but also had the experience and commitment to safely navigate us through what can be a daunting process”.

Brian Parker, Head of M&A at ICON Corporate Finance, commented: “Teams is relatively new but is now the fastest growing application in Microsoft’s history and already has more than 20m daily users. The timing of the exit was therefore crucial. We generated really strong interest for Exactive, particularly from Private Equity funded buy-and-build companies who are currently very active in this sector. People have been talking about convergence for a decade or more but it would seem to be here now and driving the M&A agenda”.