ONE MORE THING CIARAN HANCOCKTHE NEW owners of Irish storage group Oasis Group have wasted no time in inking an acquisition.

The group has just completed the acquisition of Reading-based Southern File and Data Management in a deal valued at £5 million.

Oasis, which is based in Belfast but operates on both sides of the Border, was bought by management in January in a €12.5 million takeover. The management team of Gary McElroy, Stewart Porter and Peter McCormick was backed by Dublin-based Rogers Group Investments, a vehicle controlled by businessman Des Rogers. At the time of that transaction, McCormick told The Irish Times it had an eye on an acquisition in the UK.

Southern File & Data Management services the storage and off-site document and data management needs of more than 250 clients in the UK, primarily in the financial services arena. Oasis provides offsite document and computer media storage and comprises Oman Archive Storage in the Republic, McConnell Archive Storage in Northern Ireland, ORM UK operating in Essex and MC2 Micrographics. It wants to be one of the biggest players in this space in northern Europe in the next five years.

"It supports our 'buy and build' strategy to acquire records management businesses which offer a strong foundational customer base and which are well positioned to expand in growing markets," Rogers said.

Between them, the group's four business units expect to achieve revenues of more than €12 million this year. "We think there's tremendous growth potential in the business," said McCormick, an American who was previously head of marketing at Dublin-based financial security software group Fineos.