The takeover of phone company BTC is the start of a new era — and is set to provide a boost in job numbers as the firm expands into new markets.

That was the message from new executive chairman Roy Graydon — who is part of the Barrie Holdings group of investors bought the firm out from KeyTech last month for $30 million.

Mr Graydon said: “I appreciate that any change, people get worried and this is no exception.

“But the key to making BTC a great company is not to cut its expenses — it’s to grow its revenue.

“If we succeed in that, not only will we not cut expenses, we have to hire people to satisfy demand — over time, BTC will have more people in place, rather than fewer people in place.”

Mr Graydon — who comes from a telecoms background in Canada — was speaking in an exclusive interview with The Royal Gazette, the first since he took over the reins at BTC.

He explained: “The way to think about telecoms is it’s delivered through a network — and that network is capable of delivering a wide range of services.

“That includes TV signals, internet access and service and, in the future, home monitoring systems.

“We are going to take the phone company’s network and use it to provide all these services. Right now, it provides the local phone number and local internet access.”

And Mr Graydon said: “What BTC has to do is launch its own long distance service and launch its own internet service, in addition to providing internet access.”

And he added that he also saw an opportunity to expand services to businesses on the Island — including a return to providing complete office phone systems, as well as internet-based TV.

He said: “The idea is to stop thinking about BTC as a landline business and start thinking about BTC as a network. We have a pipe into almost every home and business in the country.”

Mr Graydon said that he and BTC CEO Eric Dobson came from the same small town — Barrie, Ontario — and even attended the same high school, although they did not know each other, and later worked together at Canadian telecoms firm Fibernetics.

He added that he was aware that KeyTech wanted to buy up cable TV firm CableVision, but that it would be difficult to do that while still owning BTC and the group approached KeyTech.

Mr Grayson added that the state of the telecoms industry on the Island “was a little behind” North America.

But he said: “That gave us some comfort in looking at what can and should happen with the business. We have seen it before.”

He said the firm would also move into business data services and data access and storage, as well as phone systems, while still catering to domestic users.

And Mr Graydon predicted: “In five years time, BTC will offer almost every communications service that Bermuda needs.”

He added: “The key is being able to offer multiple services to either of these groups, or both of these groups.

“If we do that, we will be able to match the cable company in the breadth and strength of our offering — that’s our target.”

Mr Graydon added that the recession that hit Bermuda along with much of the rest of the world had made the Island more attractive for investment, rather than less so.

“We think that the stabilisation of the economy and growth of the economy will put a floor under that decline,” he said.

And Mr Graydon added: “We think it’s a good place to invest right now.”

He moved to allay fears for the future under BTC’s new owners. “We are not a typical private equity group,” Mr Graydon said. “We are a group of investors who came together because we saw this specific opportunity.

“I want people to know this is a group of very experienced and, for the most part, telecommunications experienced executives. Half of them live on the Island, and half of them have extensive telecoms experience.”