Exertis UK says “fewer than 400” of its employees face involuntary redundancy following the conclusion of its consultation process.
The UK’s fourth-largest IT distributor put all – or nearly all – of its circa 1,200 staff at risk of redundancy at the start of December following the completion of its sale to international private equity house AURELIUS.
The 45-day consultation process ended at midnight on Friday, with staff across its offices in Basingstoke, Burnley, Harlow and Elland informed of their fate this morning.
Although Exertis UK stopped short of confirming its post-rightsizing headcount tally (it referenced a figure of circa 130 in its original proposal), it issued IT Channel Oxygen with the following statement:
“The employee consultation process we concluded last Friday has obviously been challenging, but ultimately productive in the circumstances we inherited from our previous owner,” an Exertis UK spokesperson said.
“During this process, which put all employees at risk, our objective from the beginning was to mitigate hardship: we enabled an early voluntary redundancy programme, on terms above statutory requirements, to provide people more time to seek alternative employment.
“We are also in an advanced consultation process with another company which may see a large number of people transfer to a new employer. And we are embarking on a new business staffing model, focusing on becoming a specialist, independent distributor.
“The end result of our efforts is that fewer than 400 employees now face involuntary redundancy at Exertis UK, rather than the more than 1,000 we originally feared.”
What does the statement mean?
The firm with which Exertis UK is in “advanced consultation process” would appear to be Vow Wholesale, which we understand is closing in on acquiring Exertis Supplies (although we could not reach Vow to confirm this).
How many of Exertis Supplies’ 186 staff will go on to keep their jobs is another question, with correspondence shared with us indicating Vow is initially proposing to keep on just 28 of them.
We gather that over 400 of Exertis UK’s staff have chosen to take voluntary redundancy (as backed up by the huge volume of green banners that have popped up on LinkedIn over the last six weeks).
However, from talking to our sources, it would appear the number of staff Exertis UK is going forward with exceeds the 130 initially proposed (and is perhaps even higher than the 170 figure being bandied around in recent weeks).
We note the statement does not confirm which specialist areas Exertis UK will now focus on, nor where staff in the new-look business will be based.
A quick recap
The conclusion of the consultation process marks a decisive juncture in one of the UK’s channel’s largest mass redundancy events in memory.
When Exertis IT was sold by parent DCC to AURELIUS in July, CEO Tim Griffin claimed its new owner could “give us the attention we deserve”.
But by the time the deal closed at the start of November, the business had become severely hampered by credit insurance difficulties (with all the main credit insurers known to have withdrawn or reduced cover).
By the start of December, it was clear a radical restructuring was underway as five top execs suddenly left the business.
Just days later, all (or nearly all) staff at the main UK business AURELIUS had acquired – namely Exertis UK Business & Consumer and Supplies – were put at risk of redundancy (with the Irish business and the UK brands that sit under it unaffected).
DCC’s remaining distribution businesses (which include Hammer, as well as its North American AV brands) have since rebranded as ‘Nexora’.
Exertis UK will be hoping its new slim-downed staffing model and specialised approach will enable a fresh start in the eyes of the credit insurers, as well as the customers and vendors it plans to serve moving forwards.
Our best wishes go to all those staff impacted.
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
