back to article Brit web host biz UKFast gears up to IPO on London Stock Exchange

UKFast, a British web hosting provider and bringer of clouds, is planning to float on the London Stock Exchange with the aim of raising a £350m war chest, The Register can exclusively reveal. The Manchester-based business, which employs 350 staff and operates five data centres – with two dedicated to the British public sector …

  1. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

    UKFast

    That is what we will be doing if stockpiling goes ahead.

  2. Sgt_Oddball

    hope they keep the good service though

    Moved to them just before heart (internet) problems became too much in a previous job. Always knowledgable and keeping costs reasonable with white label servers (even used different brands of hdd in raid which surprised and pleased me no end).

    They even allowed upgrades to the server rather than a one size fits all approach like many others.

    Just hope they don't lose that touch.

  3. druck Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Junk

    I suspect they will successfully float with investors who don't bother to do any research in to the company, but if they keep up their terrible record of reliability, it will soon be rated as junk.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Junk

      but if they keep up their terrible record of reliability, it will soon be rated as junk

      Poor service rarely harms a business, particularly when it is the norm for the sector. It does create churn, and that will punish those companies that don't bring in new business to replace the exit of unhappy customers. So success in this sort of business if you want scale is to be broadly as cheap and as crap as everybody else, and have a well paid and harshly driven sales team.

      In most sectors there is always a niche position for higher prices and better service - but always only a small niche. Not the same segment as UKFast, but as a example look at ISPs - the best service is from small, niche players like AAISP or Zen, and all the big players offer service that ranges from mediocre to utterly shite.

      Carry out any market research, and most people or companies will agree with the proposition "I will pay more for a better quality service". When it comes to actually putting their hand in their pocket, their actions say otherwise.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Junk

        I agree in part. UKFast doesn't have a record any worse than similar companies of its size - and whether or not that is a comment on the industry as a whole is another matter.

        IT is not infallible, and you need to plan for failure. Whether it's with them, iomart, or AWS, you should be building your infrastructure to cope with the inevitable failure of some component or human error.

        If you're not planning on some element of your service having downtime, then you're not doing it right (or you don't care about it enough).

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Junk

        Carry out any market research, and most people or companies will agree with the proposition "I will pay more for a better quality service". When it comes to actually putting their hand in their pocket, their actions say otherwise.

        We actually tried this with some companies: We'll pay you more if you give us a dedicated person to look after our account.

        They turned down our offer and we got stuck with the same s**t service as everyone else.

        1. Hans 1
          Boffin

          Re: Junk

          They turned down our offer and we got stuck with the same s**t service as everyone else.

          Your offer might not have been good enough or be unfeasible, then ... how can one guy be available 24/7 ? You probably want at the very least three, then, the call center in India, the guyz in the data center, tricky that ... or you could have them setup a special support tel number just for you to allow you to get hold of the data center boys immediately, but even that is risky ... stepping away from a cost effective and proven business strategy is risky ... what if it affects their other customers ?

    2. Bob Vistakin
      Thumb Down

      Re: Junk

      This is one of those situations where a bad taste has been left in my mouth from early experience with them, and whilst simple common sense tells me they are probably better now, I'm just not even interested in finding out.

  4. streaky

    Expanding

    Lawrence Jones, CEO at UKFast, told us the national tech market was expanding, and “a float gives us the funds necessary to capitalise on the opportunity

    But muh brexit!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Expanding

      That statement for some reason made me picture thousands of Lemmings leaping to their doom as they are wanton to do from time to time.

      Perhaps the current owners know what is going to happen next March so they want to get their dosh from the IPO and escape to some tax haven while they can?

      Expanding? Expanding their residency options more like...

      1. Hans 1
        Joke

        Re: Expanding

        Exactly what I was about to comment. At least they are planning on milking the stock exchange and not us, for a change ;-)

  5. Dr Who

    Something doesn't add up

    Turnover £39.6m, profit after tax £9.47m, and they want to raise £350 million from equity investors. Even if they're selling 100% of the company, that's a ridiculous mark up.

    Only if you're losing £50 million a year selling Beta versions of IOT fitness monitors disguised as fluffy pink cats can you get that sort of valuation.

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