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Chapter 1: What recent changes has Imagine Broadband undergone?
Breakfast Business with Enterprise Ireland on Newstalk. Now, broadband company Imagine, which was acquired by the Armenia's team group last December, has both restructured and repositioned itself in the market, going from being a rural alternative broadband supplier to being a national reseller. It made the headlines recently with an offer to freeze its broadband prices until 2030.
I'm joined now by Niall Tallon, chief executive of Imagine. Good morning, Niall.
Morning, Tom, and thank you for having me.
You're more than welcome. I understand it's your first radio show, so welcome.
Yeah, no, thank you. I did my first podcast just a month ago or a couple of weeks ago and happy to follow it up with seeing you this morning.
A time of first. Now, we'll talk about your broadband offering, which is eye-catching in a moment. But first, you led the team that bought out Imagine last December. What attracted you to the company, Niall?
Yeah, I mean, I think at first we became aware that the company was for sale probably in November 23, really by a happy accident, which was I was sent a job description for the CFO of Imagine to help raise money or find a buyer for the company.
Okay. And you took it literally?
Yes. But I remember looking at the financials for the group and thinking, wow, that's a challenge. I'm not sure I could do that. It might be a bit more than I can handle. But then I think we decided to look at the market. And I think it was really when we looked at the market that we could see an opportunity there.
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Chapter 2: What is the significance of Imagine Broadband's price freeze until 2030?
And then I think when we also look at what customers are receiving, we could see a real lack of transparency in pricing in the market. We could see that it was sort of misleading and frustrating for customers. And we thought there was an opportunity to do it differently.
And are you going after the 85% or are you going after the 15%?
Well, I think in terms of, you know, how we would like to serve customers, I think we see that there are people who want to switch every year and then there's everybody else. And I think we can really speak to, you know, the market in terms of providing a good long-term saving and opportunity for customers. you know, people who are just tired of switching.
When we look at the market, if you like, at the structural market level, I think what we see is there's an opportunity for consolidation. So, you know, probably we would see our growth opportunity as a mix of sort of organic growth and M&A.
So this offer, which grabbed my attention, I have to say, to freeze prices until 2030, that sounds like the move of a challenger brand, right?
I think Imagine's roots have always been as a challenger in the market. I think it's kind of driven from the energy of its original founder, Sean Bulger. But I think that that's where we are in the market. It's just a little bit unusual that a common sense offering of a fair price for a fair service is a challenge. Usually, it's the other way around.
But I think customers now are quite frustrated with constant price hikes, switching every year, and the lack of transparency in pricing. I think you could retranslate almost any operator's advertising and pricing in the market to be broadband 75 euros first year half price. And it's also interesting when I look at what's been going on in the United Kingdom.
You know, last year, there were significant rulings by Ofcom and the Advertising Standards Authority that really laid out how advertising should be handled in the broadband market. And just a quote from that, you know, it says, you know, Failing to disclose how prices would change after introductory periods is the problem.
Ads must now prominently display the initial price, the price after the introductory period, the timing of changes and any additional fees or charges. And that's not what we see consistently in the Irish market.
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Chapter 3: What opportunities did Niall see in the broadband market?
So the first thing you did when you took over is you let 50 people go. If you're looking to double your business, why are you letting people go in a full jobs market?
Yeah, well, listen, great, great point, Tom. I think Imagine has gone through a significant transformation this year. You know, we're really going from being a rurally focused alternative network operator to being a nationally focused reseller.
And I think if you look at other companies in the market who have a similar number of customers, we would benchmark in terms of the number of employees that we have similarly. But for us to be sustainable, for us to be able to regroup and grow, the company needs to restructure its economics as a reseller and not as an operator. as difficult as those changes were this year.
And one question that keeps jumping into my head, and I have to ask, when you went looking for somebody who would back your bid for Imagine back in October, how did you end up in Armenia?
Yeah, well, I mean, I'm very lucky in that I have a longstanding relationship with a team group with both Alex and Haik Yesian. The relationship goes back probably 14 years. It really comes from a period where I was working as a strategy consultant with Ericsson.
And I would have completed three or four projects with them in terms of looking at how they would grow their business, their business planning, their fundraising. That's how we built our relationship. But equally, as I mentioned at the beginning of our discussion,
When I first found the opportunity and learned that Imagine was for sale, it would not have been realistic for us to pull together a team without someone like Team Group. We needed a strategic investor. We needed, you know, someone who could bring additionality, competence and expertise, as well as finance to the change.
Okay, Niall Talon, Chief Executive of Imagine. We'll keep an eye on your progress. No doubt you'll come back to tell us about it. Breakfast Business with Enterprise Ireland on Newstalk.
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