Colloquium, operating from Glasgow, is a fully licensed Annex II registered Public Telecommunications Operator (PTO), it has its own telecom switching and provides telecommunications voice and data solutions, including call provision and line rental, to SME customers. The services provided by Colloquium are highly complementary to the focus of Pinnacle. It has interconnect arrangements, its own telephone number ranges, both geographic and non-geographic, and is able to port fixed line numbers to and from BT.
This gives Colloquium more freedom in the market and will allow Pinnacle greater flexibility to provide a broader cost effective telecommunications solution to its customers.
Colloquium is also an ISP, one of the oldest in Scotland, having first been incorporated in January 1993. It provides a full range of ISP services to the SME market. These services include the provision of broadband, hosting services, domain name registration, web design and implementation.
It has also developed its own broadband voice (“VoIP”) platform, which currently serves customers in Scotland routing telephone calls over the internet onto Cisco and other vendor handsets.
Operating its own telecom switches gives Colloquium pricing which, at least for certain types of calls, can be more competitive than is currently available to Pinnacle. The acquisition also provides Pinnacle with the opportunity to cross sell its other comms solutions, such as mobile and IT support into the Colloquium customer base.
Colloquium founder Brian McMillan remains with the Company and will join the Pinnacle Group Board as Group Technical Director.
Alan Bonner, Glen Group plc’s Chief Executive said “This is the first acquisition we have completed since announcing recent changes to our Board structure and focus. The acquisition of Colloquium delivers valuable expertise, customers, cash flow and cross selling opportunities together with the enhanced status of a public telecommunications operator and ISP, all at a reasonably modest cost and we look forward to quickly integrating this business into the Pinnacle structure. Going forward, we will continue to seek further acquisition opportunities that can add value to our business”.
Alan Bonner founded the telecoms business Pinnacle Group, which became part of AIM Listed Glen Group plc last year.