Flotek’s 16th deal tests the IT-plus-comms roll-up for SMBs

Flotek Group, the Bridgend-based managed IT and communications provider, has bought Clear Telecom, an Essex business that has sold phone systems, connectivity and IT support to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) since 2003. Announced on 17 July, the deal is Flotek’s 16th acquisition since it was founded in 2022. No price was given.

Clear Telecom’s catalog reads like a history of the small-business comms dealer: business phone systems, hosted voice over IP (VoIP), session initiation protocol (SIP) trunks, Microsoft Teams telephony, mobile, broadband and leased lines, plus IT support. It will keep operating from Essex, and its co-owners, Barbara and John Malone, will help with integration. Flotek says existing services will continue without immediate change and that customers will be able to buy its other services, including managed IT and cybersecurity.

For owners of small IT and comms providers, the deal raises a question worth asking before a buyer calls: is a regional roll-up the natural home for a business like theirs, and what does the buyer’s own balance sheet say about the price of joining one?

What the accounts show

Flotek’s group accounts for the year to 30 June 2025, filed at Companies House on 11 July, are the first in which it has consolidated its subsidiaries. They describe a group whose principal activity is IT managed services, cybersecurity and telecoms services for UK SMEs.

Revenue rose 85% to £14.1m, from £7.7m a year earlier. Gross profit was £7.4m, a gross margin of about 52%, and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) were £2.2m, up from £1.4m. Operating profit was £1.4m. The group ended the year with £1.4m of cash and £2.8m of external debt, leaving net debt of 0.6 times EBITDA on the directors’ figures, down from 1.6 times. They say more than 60% of revenue is recurring and contracted. Average headcount rose from 62 to 97 over the year.

Acquisitions were part of that growth. During that year Flotek bought Simpology UK, Microshade Business Consultants and Colbek Systems, and completed the full acquisition of Office Equipment Systems. After the year end it took full ownership of FlexiNet, a deal Flotek says expanded its presence across Hampshire and the south of England. The board describes its strategy as building “a nationally relevant MSP through organic growth and disciplined acquisition”, in a market it calls “competitive and fragmented”.

Jay Ball, Flotek’s chief executive, set out a target of £100m in revenue by 2032 in a July 2025 interview with Comms Dealer, when Flotek gave its annual revenue run rate as £18m. In April 2026 Flotek said, citing comments Ball made to IT Channel Oxygen, that its organic growth had reached 43% the previous year.

Why comms dealers are selling

Clear Telecom’s owners gave their own reason. “We know that IT and communications are increasingly coming together, and that more businesses want to bring their technology services under one provider,” Barbara and John Malone said in Flotek’s announcement. Ball framed the deal as geography: “This acquisition is an important step in expanding our managed IT presence across Essex and the wider South East.”

Two outside forces support the owners’ reading. The first is the end of the copper phone network. Government guidance for schools, published in January 2026, says the public switched telephone network (PSTN), integrated services digital network (ISDN) and copper broadband services “will be switched off by January 2027”. A dealer whose income was built on line rental and on-premises phone systems has a shrinking base to sell into, while hosted voice and Teams calling sit naturally alongside managed IT.

The second is demand for outside help with security. The government’s Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025/2026, published by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) in April, found that 48% of UK businesses had an external cybersecurity provider. The figure was 64% among small businesses and 70% among medium-sized ones, and rose among micro businesses from 39% to 44% in a year. The survey’s interviews found managed service providers were commonly used by smaller organizations, often because of limited capacity in-house. A comms dealer without that security offer is selling to customers, many of whom already buy it from someone else.

The risks in a 16-deal group

Flotek’s directors list recruitment and retention, competition and the economic conditions facing UK SMEs among the group’s principal risks. All of the group’s existing facilities are at fixed rates, they say, before adding: “Changes to rates in future may impact M&A, however acquisitions would be structured accordingly.”

Integration is the larger test. Sixteen businesses since 2022 can mean 16 sets of billing systems, carrier contracts, customer habits and staff expectations to bring into one service model. Flotek says integration will be phased and that customers will be kept informed of any future operational or brand changes.

What owners should take from it

For the owner of a small comms or IT provider, the Clear Telecom deal is a reference point rather than a template. Buyers of this kind appear to be paying for recurring contracts, customer relationships in a region they do not yet cover and staff who can be cross-trained. A dealer whose income still rests on copper lines and handset sales is likely to be worth less in 2027 than it is now, and one that has moved customers to hosted voice and added security services will have more to show any buyer, or more reason not to sell.

For rival roll-ups and the distributors that supply them, the filing is a public data point on how one IT-plus-comms consolidator looked after a year of buying. The harder measure comes later: whether service, margin and staff hold up as each acquired business moves onto the group’s systems. Sellers, and their customers, will judge every buyer on that.