AIM-listed Coms hoovers up Actimax for £3.4m

Acquisitive cloud-based telephony player Coms Plc has hoovered loss-making comms dealer Actimax in a cash splurge that could rise to £3.4m depending on results.

AIM-listed Coms, which dug deep and found £9.5 to buy Redstone back in November, also revealed it is planning to place more shares on the market to raise £7.9m after expenses.

The buy of "certain subsidiaries" will cost Coms £2.4m in cash on completion with another £1m payable in 13 months conditional that turnover reaches a minimum threshold of £7.6m.

The remainder of the cash raised via the placement will be used to fund Actimax's working capital (£1.4m) "needed to alleviate credit pressure", another £600k for integration costs. The rest to fund organic growth and the expansion of disaster recovery skills.

Basildon-based Actimax, which trades as Cloudxl, sells network management, unified comms and data services to 800 financial services, hospitality, charities and public sector clients largely based in London and the South East.

It employs some 67 heads including 23 engineers, with contract and project management staffers, call centre "agents", account managers, specialist sales, finance, product development and operational types all heading to Coms.

Backed by private equity firm Synova Capital, Actimax was itself formed out of the merger of several companies in 2011. It made a loss of £760k according to unaudited accounts for the last calendar year to 31 December on sales of £10.54m.

It underwent restructuring in 2013 to cut costs, and Coms said it is eyeing up "further opportunities by combining infrastructure" to save £3m a year in overheads.

Coms did not specify the subsidiaries it has acquired, but CEO David Breith, said in a statement, the deal allows it to boost the existing infrastructure and buying power.

An application to place a further 138 plus million shares on the market was made on Friday, and the shares will be traded on AIM. ®