Douglas Reed led Vox Telecoms for 17 years, growing it into a household name and laying the foundations for what would become Vivica Group.
The foundations of Vox Telecoms’ empire, now Vivica Group, were laid by an entrepreneur who spent 16 years selling hardware — as in DIY, tools, and equipment — before making a hard turn into IT at age 38.
In his late 30s, Reed realised he was wasting time working for other people. However, he could not afford to start a business from scratch.DataPro had provided IT support for Reed’s stores, and he knew the company’s outgoing MD well.Reed took a salary cut and bought 30% of the business with the ambition of turning it into a national Internet service provider.
“I took over a company that had no business plan in place. The first three years demanded 12-hour days, six days a week,” Reed said in He approached three financiers to orchestrate a management buyout, and BoE Private Equity Investments came to the party. “The bank wanted to sell us to the highest bidder, and we had no desire to be owned by anyone,” said Reed.DataPro continued its meteoric growth throughout the early 2000s.Reed said the experience with the bank was a hard lesson.“But if there is no alternative, the best thing to do is hold onto as many shares as possible, and then double the size of the company so that your money doubles, work hard for five years and buy back your business.”In 2005, it branded its voice division as Vox Telecom.
“If the company you take over is your core business, then people are not an issue, and we take virtually none of them into the fold,” he explained.
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