Olive acquires Connection 365’s base – with more to come

Vodafone platinum partner says its the first in a number of planned acquisitions this year, in a deal that takes its base to 45,000 connections

Olive Communications has bought rival B2B dealer Connection 365’s customer base for an undisclosed fee.

The deal will see Olive’s connection numbers boosted by around 1,000 connections to 45,000 in total – with around 35,000 of these on Vodafone.

Olive said it is the first of a number of acquisitions planned for the remainder of the year.

Olive operations director Kerry Davies said: “A key element of our business strategy over the coming months is to significantly grow our base by offering customers preferential commercials and the highest service levels. We are increasing resource across departments in order to maintain our high levels of customer care.

Merseyside-based Connection 365 was set up seven years ago connecting Orange, O2 and Vodafone by managing director Steve Mursell (pictured).

Mursell said the firm will now focus on selling and distributing its mobile tracking and forms application ‘Workflow’ by partnering with other dealers in the B2B channel.

Olive has confirmed it has now begun selling the Workflow application.

Mursell said: “The sale will now allow us to concentrate on working with other mobile resellers on supplying our mobile workforce solutions app.

“We have always concentrated on Mobile Data Solutions for our clients and were installing BlackBerry Enterprise Servers into our SME base as early as 2007, and have recently been deploying Mobile App Workflow Solutions to their clients.

“Our base has grown to just under 1,000 connections and now requires extra commercial and customer service support that can be provided by Olive Communications.”