Econocom Products & Solutions UK is poised for further acquisitive and organic growth following its SmartComm asset purchase, its CEO Gavin Bell has indicated.
Having acquired its way into the UK reseller market in 2021 via its purchase of Apple reseller Trams, Econocom in March bolstered its UK audio-visual capabilities via the SmartComm deal.
But the Paris-headquartered giant is looking to scale its UK business further as part of wider plans to grow revenues to €4bn by 2028, Bell told IT Channel Oxygen.
“As a reseller or IT solutions provider, you need a level of scale,” Bell said.
“The whole point of Econocom coming in and getting that footprint with Trams was to grow it, so that we’re a larger business that’s more similar to what we’ve got in France, Spain, Belgium or Italy.”
Smart move
Econocom acquired SmartComm’s assets in their entirety, and has since taken on a “significant portion” of its team, Bell indicated.
Boasting over 100 staff and revenues of over £25m at its peak, High Wycombe-based SmartComm fell into administration in February following a winding-up petition from HMRC.
Econocom is less interested in SmartComm’s residential business – which supplied AV kit to high net worth individuals and apartment blocks – than its corporate arm, Bell explained.
“I’ve had lots of meetings with ex SmartComm customers, where we’ve gone in and are looking to re-engage either from project or a support perspective,” Bell said.
“They’ve all been really complimentary about SmartComm’s reputation and the quality of the service they provided. We’ve secured a number of significant contracts over the last few weeks, and there’s more we expect to sign.
“Although it’s not an acquisition in the traditional sense, we wanted to use it to accelerate that existing AV capability we had in the UK.”
Ireland awaits
Although Econocom in December 2023 rebranded its €250m-revenue AV business as ‘Gather’, this new brand is not yet being used in earnest in the UK, Bell clarified.
“I’m mindful that actually Econocom isn’t as well known in the UK as an IT solutions and services provider as a lot of household names you come across,” he said.
“Our heritage in the UK is more around financing solutions.
“In the UK, we really want to focus on the Econocom brand to get that name more prevalent in the market. If we start to talk about Econocom AND Gather, it dilutes the message, which is that Econocom is wanting to grow, wanting to acquire, and wanting to become a bigger player in UK IT and financing.”
A €225m private placement Econocom carried out earlier this month will be used partly to fund targeted M&A.
On this front, Econocom is on course to complete an Irish AV acquisition in the coming months, Bell indicated.
“If you look at the AV industry in Ireland, it feels like either people need to acquire or be acquired,” he said.
Econocom Products & Solutions UK’s headcount has swelled from around 50 to 75 since Bell joined from Computacenter last July, with the wider UK headcount now standing at close to 110 if the finance arm is included.
“In the next couple of months, I expect we will have doubled the number of employees [for Products & Solutions] in the UK,” Bell said.
“We’re doing that through a mixture of acquisitions and aggressive talent attraction. Then in H2, we want to grow further through the acquisition strategy.”
Econocom Products & Solutions last November rebranded from Trams and became a wholly owned subsidiary of Econocom.
“We were never going to stop there. The whole point was to come in and expand the business in the UK and Ireland. We’re absolutely looking to do that,” Bell concluded.
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
