Chess ICT

Chess ICT Ltd is a UK based technology provider, founded in 1993 by David Pollock in Alderley Edge. The business has 6 offices across the UK: Abingdon, Alderley Edge, Borehamwood, Bury St Edmunds, Burnley and Glasgow. It is a private limited company with 500+ people and an annual group turnover of £120 million in 2018, ICT is the largest division in the group.

Chess was founded in 1993 and started by selling a water-management device. The business moved into reselling gas and electricity in 1995 followed by telecoms in 1996, with a focus on business to business. Between 2001 and 2018 Chess made 100 capability and customer acquisitions.

• In 2010, in a move to strengthen its wholesale business Chess bought the billing platform developer, Shaftesbury Systems.

• Its 75th acquisition in 2013 was Microsoft partner and cloud software provider, The CRM Business.

• 2014 saw a focus on its mobile and partner division with Chess completing the acquisition of O2 and EE mobile distributor Avenir Telecom.

• Followed up with a further purchase, that added £2.2m to its turnover through the acquisition of ICT business, Parachute IT.

• In 2016 Chess acquired the Burnley-based ICT business Lanway, for an undisclosed sum.

• Later that year, AIM listed Pinnacle agreed to sell the trade and assets of Pinnacle CDT to Chess for a total cash sum of £2.8m.

• Early in 2017, Chess added Foursys, a cyber security business, for an undisclosed sum.

• In 2018 there was a double acquisition adding more than 2,200 customers from Frontier V&D and Stonehouse. It ended the year with the acquisition of voice and data business TMS.

In 2018, after 9 successive years in the Top 100 Best Mid Companies category, Chess was awarded 1st place in The Sunday Times Best Companies to Work For.