Mobile phone firm JWE Telecom is hitting the big time with a £24 million deal to buy a network airtime business.

Pocklington-based JWE will be transformed from a mobile phone distribution operation into a key national telecommunications company through its acquisition of Managed Network Services (MNS) of Oxford.

The deal means JWE will:

For the first time be able to sell mobile phone airtime as well as phones

Take on an extra 30 staff immediately, and another 20 employees by next year - taking the total number on the payroll to almost 500.

JWE has also just trialled an Internet server and hopes to be able to offer customers Internet access via mobile phones in the summer, hopefully by June.

The deal to buy MNS represents a massive turnaround in the JWE's fortunes. Only last May, it posted a profits warning and broadened its strategy as its margins were hit hard by retail multiples mass marketing pre-pay phones.

Already the prospect of the acquisition has raised an extra £15 million worth of investment on the Stock Exchange.

"We are very excited and pleased," said chief executive Tony Farmer.

"The City has given us a real thumbs up for our business plans and strategy.

"We are building a company at the forefront of the convergence revolution - providing products and services spanning voice and data, fixed line and mobile, internet and airtime in a single integrated offering to our customers.

"We have all the ingredients in place and the resources to grow our market share and become a much larger player covering the whole of the UK. Moreover we shall have greater control and ownership of the processes which are strategically important to the business going forward."

The purchase of MNS has to be ratified at an extraordinary general meeting of JWE on April 27.

But this should be a formality given that chairman John Weatherill, from whom JWE takes its name, has given "irrevocable undertakings" that he and his wife, Pauline, who for the moment own more than 50 per cent of the shares, will give the move their blessing.

It will be Mr Weatherill's last act before he retires as chairman, selling all but seven per cent of his holdings in the company.

Mr Weatherill, who lives in the Pickering area and built the business up from scratch, is said to have made a personal £3 million fortune from the flotation of JWE in 1998.

Mr Farmer said: "John has not been in the best of health and has taken advice from his doctor."

In his place will step Bob Kennedy, chairman of MNS whose operations in Oxfordshire will maintain identity and staff.

Also joining the new board as director of network services will be John Wood, the present managing director of MNS.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.