Small hi-tech Teesside company in management buy-out

10 05 2006 United Kingdom

Managers of a group of small Teesside companies, Onyx, have bought out the existing shareholders to prepare the business for further growth. They plan to float the company on the stock market within two years.

Onyx Internet was founded in 1994 in Middlesbrough. It is one of the first Internet Service Providers to have been launched in the UK.

The company acquired two other businesses over the past three years, DataBanx in Newcastle and Askaris in Richmond, North Yorkshire. DataBanx operates a £4m disaster recovery centre to provide IT security services for clients including Arriva and Reg Vardy.

Askaris was launched in 1999 by husband and wife team Sean and Susan Allison, providing specialist IT security solutions to the defence, government and financial sectors.

Neil Stephenson, sales and marketing director at Onyx, explained how the ISP sector is changing.

“The number of suppliers in our sector is shrinking as more and more companies consolidate to provide competitive, full-service packages to clients,” he said. “The Onyx Group has always kept pace with these changes.”

The company’s aim is to float on the stock market within the next two years, giving a foundation for further strategic acquisitions and profitable growth.

This year it will launch the new ‘OnyxTalk’ VOIP service, which allows anyone with a broadband connection to substantially reduce their telephony bills, as well as launching a new wireless network to serve all of Newcastle and expanding its Wi Fi offering across the UK.

Over the last five years Onyx has achieved growth between 25 and 50 per cent a year. The workforce was 32 strong earlier last year and now it employs 42. The group plans to increase turnover from £5m this year to £10m in 2008.

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