A LEADING telecommunications provider headquartered in Bolton has announced a shake-up of its UK subsidiary companies.

Headquartered in Thomas Holden Street, the company announced the name change of Telesis and Difference Corporation, which will now operate under the banner of Firstcom Europe.

The move comes in line with Firstcom's UK restructure and expansion.

CEO, Christian Bleakley, said: "“Our strategy has evolved. Firstcom Europe will project one image to the market, each of our companies leveraging off the other.

"Our focus has previously been to move slowly away from the existing names so as not to lose their brand recognition and then move toward Firstcom Europe. That time is now over, and we are merging our operations and identity, to be more integrated."

Firstcom Europe currently operates in the UK, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Poland, and is seeking to make further acquisitions within this footprint.

Over the past six years Firstcom has made eight acquisitions and achieved an annual turnover of more than €36m.

Mr Bleakley added: “When we started our company in Bolton 12 years ago, we never thought that we would be the centre of operations of a European business with cutting edge technology.

"Many of the original team have stayed with us and their experience has grown with the company expansion. The high demand for cloud services has seen us strengthen our team by 20%, even in the middle of Covid, to include more technicians, customer support, finance and channel staff. We have streamlined our business to make it easier for customers to work with us.”

Mr Bleakley added that he has plans to expand the Firstcom Europe brand further and said that he is confident that there are other companies in the UK that could benefit from a merger with Firstcom Europe