Kedington, an enclosures and cabling business acquired five years ago by Esat BT, has embarked on a management buyout (MBO) following a strategic operations review that judged the firm as not core to Esat BT’s business objectives.
Kedington employs 74 people in Dublin, Cork and Limerick and the MBO is understood to take immediate effect. Rumours of the MBO have been circulating over the last few weeks with Kedington understood to have a valuation in the region of €5m.
According to Esat BT spokesperson Una McGirr, a strategic review of operations commenced last year when the current CEO of Esat BT, Bill Murphy, came on board. “He decided the company needed to take a more focused view of the markets we are serving,” she said. “This modified presence in various communications reflects that review and we have tidied up our various businesses across the board.”
“Kedington was a good business, but we are not a cabling company, and it no longer is core to the corporate and high-end SME [small to medium enterprise] market we are focusing on. The management of Kedington was keen to take the company to the next level and it has been a happy outcome for all parties,” McGirr said.
On the question of further MBOs of non-core activities at Esat BT, McGirr said that this was unlikely. “Kedington was the only business that wasn’t central to what Esat BT was about going forward. Oceanfree and IOL are still core to what we are doing in terms of corporate and residential voice, data and internet services,” she said.
“It is good news for both sides. We both got what we wanted,” said Matt Porter, Kedington managing director. “We recognise Esat BT’s need to focus on its core business. And this enables Kedington to move forward in its own right. In the future, we will be concentrating on establishing ourselves as a stand-alone entity.”
By John Kennedy
