Corporate: former takeover target Spirit Telecom is now a buyer in its own right

Telco Spirit Telecom (ASX:ST1) announced another acquisition this morning of cloud storage and cybersecurity firm Cloud BT, which made $1.3 million revenues last year.

The purchase, which will cost Spirit $700,000 in cash and shares, follows the 2019 acquisitions of LinkOne, Building Connect, Arinda IT and Phoenix Austec.

The first of these came only days after Spirit rejected a takeover from then newly listed Uniti Group (ASX:UWL), which went on to be 2019’s most successful IPO.

Like Uniti, Spirit wants to be an alternative to the NBN. It has a particular focus on the commercial sector and sells cyber security and other IT solutions as part of bundles.

“Spirit is well on its way to being the leading provider of internet and IT services to small and medium sized businesses across Australia,” said managing director Sol Lukatsky.

Stockhead has contacted the company for further comment.

Shares were unchanged this morning, but the stock has doubled since early March last year.

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In other ASX corporate news today:

Fellow tech stock Class (ASX:CL1) also announced an acquisition this morning. It is forking out over $20 million on professional documentation platform NowInfinity. It also gave its quarterly update and it revealed its total accounts grew by 2,600.

Underwater drone and robotics company UUV Aquabotix (ASX:UUV) is being sued by the licensor of its technology. The company, which listed at 20 cents and now sits at 0.2 cents after its latest plunge this morning has promised to fight the case. It also announced a further US$600,000 credit facility from former substantial shareholder Bergen Global Opportunity Fund.

Insurance advice group AUB Group (ASX:AUB) reaffirmed its guidance of an 8-10 per cent higher profit this financial year. Although this was based on preliminary unaudited financial performance for the first half of the financial year, CEO Mike Emmett said the business’ performance was strong.