FILE PHOTO: A billboard advertising Virgin media fibre broadband is seen in London, Britain, March 30, 2016. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo
LONDON (Reuters) -Britain's Virgin Media O2 said it was creating a new business-to-business company by combining its enterprise unit with IT and telecoms provider Daisy Group, with the aim of offering more products and services to customers ranging from single traders to large public and private groups.
The new company will be 70% owned by Virgin Media O2, a joint venture between Liberty Global and Telefonica, and 30% owned by Daisy Group, the two said on Monday.
Virgin Media O2 chief executive Lutz Schuler said Daisy was a good fit for an operator that had been largely focused on consumers.
"To carve this business out as a separate entity, fully focused on B2B is much better," he said in an interview.
"It will get more sun and more rain."
Daisy founder and executive chairman Matthew Riley said there was a huge opportunity to sell its unified comms platform and products from the likes of Microsoft to VM O2's customers.
He said it would also be well placed to help companies get the most out of AI.
The new entity, created in all-share deal, will have pro-forma revenue of about 1.4 billion pounds ($1.85 billion) and adjusted core earnings of about 150 million pounds, based on the groups' 2024 performance, the companies said.
Schuler said the new group was targeting 600 million pounds in synergies, equating to a run rate of 70 million pounds a year by 2030, from optimising IT platforms and other efficiencies.
It will be led by Riley as chairman and Jo Bertram, managing director of VM O2 Business, as chief executive.
Jefferies and Deloitte advised VM O2 and Houlihan Lokey and EY advised Daisy on the deal.
($1 = 0.7579 pounds)
(Reporting by Paul Sandle; editing by Sarah Young and David Evans)
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