Adept Technology Share Discussion Threads

[william47] 06/12/2007 14:35

l2 still 3v1

[william47] 06/12/2007 14:35

l2 still 3v1

[william47] 06/12/2007 14:24

cannot believe pi,s are not piling in here after all todays news.100p+

[william47] 06/12/2007 14:01

keeps ticking up and still 3v1 100p+

[william47] 06/12/2007 13:45

still 3v1.a bit of press about todays carphone warehouse deal should see us trading nearer a 100p

[william47] 06/12/2007 13:04

acquisition and results.this will hit new highs.100p+

[nakedshorter] 23/10/2007 23:22

definitely going on my monitor!

[nakedshorter] 23/10/2007 23:19

blimey what happened here?..nearly bought a few months back at 45p..thought i'd missed the boat

[olivercromwell] 23/10/2007 21:00

run by a geezer from wigan so its no suprise it's a mess,

oc

[billbyrne] 23/10/2007 20:36

AshleighP

Any chance of a link to the broker update or could you
copy the article here. Thanks in advance.

[wiganer] 23/10/2007 19:21

Incredibly odd chart.

[ashleighp] 23/10/2007 14:19

Their broker appears to have significantly reduced their forecasts for years ending in 2008 and 2009 which may explain the fall.

[latifs100] 23/10/2007 11:34

any ideas on this, fallen from 80p to 33p now..., agm was with no shocks? holding fro 56p

[latifs100] 08/10/2007 15:25

any directors reading this.. com on, show us ur confidence in this co. buy a large amount

[latifs100] 26/9/2007 13:24

could do with more director buys at these levels..holding from 56p

[billbyrne] 11/9/2007 21:09

At the Annual General Meeting to be held later today, Roger Wilson, Chairman of
AdEPT Telecom plc, a leading independent provider of telecommunications services
for landline calls, line rental and broadband, will comment that current trading
continues to be in line with expectations.

First half almost over, so there should be no shocks.
I to am now thinking of buying again but i expected
a jump up today. I will watch while the markets are so
nervous over the coming weeks. Will buy when markets
have calmed down.

[latifs100] 06/9/2007 08:43

must be a bargain at 39p?

[grahamcm] 31/8/2007 07:10

Is this looking ready for a bounce back to 80'ish? Thinking of buying.

[smashingguy] 20/8/2007 11:51

Becoming adept
November 2006

Adept Telecom is in the process of growing itself and its market share by actively consolidating smaller operations under its umbrella. Ruari McCallion spoke to Roger Wilson about economies of scale, customer care and improving services

While Roger Wilson doesn't fit the stereotype of a 'serial entrepreneur, he has some of the characteristics: working in a growing industry, a successful track record, positions in a number of different companies, an eye for a good business opportunity and the energy to exploit it. He was the first managing director of Telewest's residential consumer business in the UK; he subsequently spent three years successfully building a telecoms business for US investors in Poland. In addition to being chairman and one of the founders of Adept Telecom, he's currently a non-executive director of Urban Wimax, a recently formed business providing symmetrical bandwidth to SMEs who find that ADSL doesn't give them adequate upstream capacity. Until the end of 2005 he was also chairman of Cryosystems, and managing director of the European Competitive Telecommunications Association which represents alternative telecoms operators across the European Union.
"I've been involved in a number of business start-ups, so I suppose I am fairly entrepreneurial," he conceded. "Adept Telecom was formed when Ian Fishwick, the managing director, contacted me with the business case behind Adept and I signed up for the concept immediately." The idea was based on the proposition that any industry with a significant degree of fragmentation offers opportunities to create economies of scale.
"The genesis of Adept was in identifying that, although the residential market in telecoms has a fair degree of consolidation among a few large companies, the business in B2B has tremendous fragmentation," he said. "When we began, we estimated there were about 600 companies in the business telecommunications market in the UK. In fact, there are around 900. Most are turning over less than £2 million a year: they're small operations, with maybe the founder, his or her spouse and a business partner. Typically, these companies are started by a couple of sales people who know the market – they've been out there, knocking on doors." They're providing a reasonably effective service but they get to the point where they need to expand but the operation has become sufficiently complex that they don't have the money or the time. Their entrepreneurial opportunity may have become a lifestyle operation – it pays for a nice car and a nice house, but the price is constant attention. Adept offers a way for the owners to make money, by selling out to a larger, more effective operation.
"What we saw in the B2B telecoms market was an opportunity to consolidate and build very efficient administration," said Wilson. "We hired a management team with very strong IT and process skills and introduced a highly automated back office." That's the infrastructure that will deliver economies of scale. But economies are worth nothing, if the scale isn't there.
"We have a very aggressive acquisition strategy, and have carried out an average of four deals each year since inception. We've standardised our acquisition approach – we turn down more companies than we acquire," he said. The typical acquired business has a turnover in the region of £2 million, with 10 to 15 employees and a return in the region of five per cent EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation). "We can take over a company like that and immediately drop 20 per cent to EBITDA. We can do it because we have low overheads and can effectively integrate companies quickly. The longest we've taken is six weeks; the shortest we've achieved – so far – is three days. Typically, we do it in a month." It avoids taking on overheads it doesn't want, like property or vehicle leases: it focuses on the telecoms it's there to provide. Acquisition gives it faster growth, more effectively than directly building up a customer base.
"We have a pricing formula for acquisition and we never buy a business that isn't EPS (earnings per share) enhancing for us," said Wilson. Its service is around fixed-line telephone calls and line rentals. It has 17,000 business customers, providing 87 per cent of its turnover, plus 20,000 legacy residential, who came with various acquisitions. As Adept grows, so do its efficiencies. "You need a certain amount of fixed-cost infrastructure, for billing, customer service and management. The more incremental turnover you can put on top, the better." The efficiencies aren't at the expense of service: in fact, customers may find service levels improve. "We absolutely stick to the commitment that, if you as a customer phone us, you will speak to an individual – and in this country, not overseas. We don't have automated telephone answering – people don't like it." If calls are being handled individually, where do the savings come from?
"Because we're larger, we can buy wholesale line capacity cheaper. Also, we automate everything that isn't customer-facing," he said. "All our customer-facing staff have computer screens where every interaction has a button. If they're unsure, they have a 'help' button, which tells them." Ordering is done over the phone, the operator inputs the information and presses 'enter', and the whole of the day's transactions are bundled and fired off overnight to Cable & Wireless, Adept's main wholesale provider. "We aim to never do things twice and to minimise paperwork. Provisioning, fault reporting and billing are all highly automated. We've learned that, if you have an integrated system, then customers don't have to ring twice. It's when customers have to call four or five times that call centres get overwhelmed."
While the focus has, hitherto, been on providing fixed-line services to business customers, other opportunities arise as the company grows.
"When we get beyond 20,000 B2B customers beyond 20,000, cross-selling opportunities arise," said Wilson. "We're looking at broadband, local loop unbundling and mobile. Lots of business customers have a bit of fixed line, a bit of broadband and some mobile communications. Each one requires an infrastructure overhead. Delivering multiple services requires a certain size: we have reached that size, and we see convergence coming." When a company gets to £20 million revenues – which Adept has – the efficiencies increase significantly. "Over the last three years, our net margins have been getting better. We bought four companies last year and our aim is to buy one per quarter, on average. Our appetite isn't sated: we're continuing to look for opportunities."