“We built a close relationship with Luke, Amar and Harri. They are dynamic, collaborative, and hands-on, when required. We are confident they are the right partner for us and we look forward to working with them to deliver our ambitious expansion plans.” Richard Burke, CEO, Arrow Return to portfolio Arrow arrowcommunications.co.uk Shareholder re-organisation to facilitate founder succession and growth capital to back a proven management team through the next phase of their M&A strategy. The business Arrow provides business critical unified communications and IT services to enterprises and the public sector. The deal Over 25 years, led by Chris and Rich, Arrow had become a leading player in the B2B comms and IT space benefitting from high quality, resilient earnings, and strong cash generation. Arrow was looking for a partner to help accelerate organic growth through widening its product set to include more IT and collaboration tools and accessing the public sector. MML invested alongside Chris, Rich and the management team - who all reinvested materially - and created a significant equity pot for the broader management team, with a portion reserved to benefit all employees equally. Since investing, MML have helped the team deliver five highly accretive acquisitions, alongside accelerating organic growth. Fund Partnership Region Europe Deal Status Current Sector Business Services Catch up with CEO, Richard Burke, six months post investment. How has Arrow evolved over recent years? Arrow started life over 25 years ago as a mobile service provider and has continually diversified since then, now providing corporates with all IT and comms solutions across voice, cyber, connectivity and collaboration tools. This has included completing over 18 acquisitions. Today we have over 5,000 customers and 250 staff across nine UK offices. I joined the business in 2017 and MML’s investment was the catalyst for me to step into the CEO role and enable Arrow’s founder, Chris Russell, to become Executive Chair. How was the deal process? As ever, the deal process took longer than it should, and we spoke to a number of parties with a view of getting the right cultural alignment with our future partner. We had good success with our previous investor and were looking for a larger partner with a similar view of what is important in business. Ultimately, we chose MML because Luke, Amar and Harri really understood our business and importantly understood the value was in our culture, given we are primarily a service led business. What have the first six month’s been like? Extraordinary! In less than three months we were navigating the business through Covid times with our new partners. Thankfully, MML has been incredibly supportive, enabling us to manage through the macro-environment largely unscathed. We’ve also been able to continue expanding our product portfolio, completing three strategic acquisitions. Coupled with bringing on board a new CFO, transitioning the group to working from home, and running a triathlon, it has certainly been a busy period! Related news November 2021 Arrow hits the target with Circle acquisition October 2021 Arrow reels in Pescado and hits the target with AIMES May 2021 Arrow continues expansion into Network and Security products and services with its latest acquisition of UK-tec Limited March 2021 Arrow expands its public sector IT capability with Complete Networks acquisition September 2020 MML supports Arrow to make its third acquisition in 2020 July 2020 MML backed Arrow strengthens its cyber security capability with acquisition of Altinet Associated deal team Luke Jones Partner Amar Shanghavi Investment Director Harrison Smith Investment Manager Christian Brown Investment Associate London Paris New York Dublin Home Approach People Funds Portfolio News & Insights Contacts Investor Login Twitter LinkedIn Terms & Conditions Privacy Policy Cookies Policy Site Credits Back to top