Teleware on lookout for acquisition to build market share

Thirsk-based Teleware describes itself as being based inside Yorkshire’s own ‘Silicon Vale’.

It set up a US office in response to anticipated demand for its mobile call compliance system. Teleware’s system records and stores all voice calls and text messages sent from mobile devices.

Steve Haworth, the company’s chief executive, said: “We are looking to potentially acquire a UK business with complementary partners, products and revenues or competitive revenues that we can migrate easily on to our own services.

“We are committed to growing our partner base and often the process of introducing new vendors can take a long time.

“Large organisations look to consolidate suppliers, so helping them to achieve greater sales with fewer partners is something we are looking to help with.”

Mr Haworth said Teleware was looking “for a good cultural fit”

He told The Yorkshire Post: “While we have not finished our year, we estimate to have grown our top line revenue by £200,000 which is below original forecast, primarily due to the lack of traction in the US.”

Mr Haworth said that, while the Dodd-Frank regulations in the US included the need to record all communications, including mobile phone calls and messages, this has yet to lead to deployments by any of the banks.

The Dodd-Frank legislation was passed by the US Congress in 2010 to crack down on “too big to fail” banks, or firms that would topple financial markets if they collapsed.

Dodd-Frank has tightened up the monitoring of the sales of derivatives which caused the crash of 2008.

US regulators want financial services firms to keep a close eye on their mobile phone records. Dodd-Frank affects everybody involved in US markets.

Mr Haworth added: “We are still investing in the US market and have retained our New York office, but have reinvested our efforts more into the UK.

“However, our profits are forecast to have strong growth as a lot more of our sales this year have come from our software... where we are not buying in additional partner services, such as mobile air time, so it is a more profitable mix of revenue.”

Mr Haworth said the result was a tribute to the research and development teams behind the software.

The firm, which currently employs 80 staff, has a turnover of around £10.7m.