A HAMPSHIRE company has added another business to its portfolio in a deal described as a "perfect marriage".

The Whiteley-based business telecoms and cloud communications provider Onecom has acquired 9 Group, which has thousands of fixed line and cloud customers and hundreds of channel partners.

The strategic acquisition marks Onecom’s second major deal in as many months.

As part of the transaction 9 Retail, which has in excess of 5,000 telephony, hosted voice and on-premise customers, becomes a Onecom Group company along with 9 Partners, which supports 450 indirect channel partners.

James Palmer, founder and chief executive of 9 Group, will continue to be actively involved in the business along with his management team.

Martin Flick, Onecom's chief executive, said: "This is a highly significant strategic acquisition for Onecom Group, strengthening our portfolio and further diversifying our revenue streams by adding a large non-mobile telephony provider and a fantastic channel partner community as a new route to market in one move.

"Supporting and investing in channel partners is essential to our ambition as we go forward.

"We have a well-established footprint in enterprise and the mid-market and the acquisition will help us drive sales of our exceptional products and services to businesses of all sizes, with a high degree of proximity to customer need that only a channel can deliver to SMBs at this scale."

Last month Onecom acquired Olive Communications.

Mr Flick said: "For the Onecom team to have made two such important acquisitions in such a short space of time, and during the pandemic, is testament to the strength of our team and our ability to drive growth and consolidation in this competitive market, with strong support from our investment partners LDC.

“I am hugely excited to be leading the team in growing and developing the strategy to the benefit of our mutual customers and channel partners alike.

“Both our direct and indirect sales teams now have the combined benefit of huge management experience, access to an unrivalled portfolio of complementary products and services, and market leading billing, online management and support capabilities.”

Mr Palmer added: "Onecom and 9 Group are a perfect marriage, sharing a like-minded culture focused on enjoying our work and striving for excellence in everything we do.

"I am excited about bringing our two businesses together and working with the Onecom team so that customers and partners across the board benefit from new opportunities of scale and increased capability.”

Onecom is backed by LDC, the private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group.

Yann Souillard, Head of London at LDC, said: "Acquiring 9 Group will further expand Onecom’s offering and help it reach even more customers, underlining its position as one of the fastest-growing business telecoms providers in the UK.

“We continue to work closely with all of our portfolio companies to help them to captialise on acquisition opportunities which help build scale and resilience.”