Northamber’s pan-European M&A antics are being driven by its vendors and resellers, its Executive Chairman Alex Phillips told IT Channel Oxygen as he sought to contextualise its latest purchase.
The AIM-listed distributor this morning announced it has acquired Dutch audio-visual specialist EPATRA for up to €2m in cash.
It marks Northamber’s third acquisition inside a year, all of which have had an international bent.
Having gained a foothold in the Netherlands through its acquisition of UC&C distributor Tempura last April, Northamber then snapped up Irish cyber specialist Renaissance Contingency Services in July.
“We are seeing a lot of our key vendor partners and resellers asking us to help more with international opportunities, so it made sense to scale up our international presence,” Phillips said.
“We are seeing vendors want the convenience of multi country but coupled with the deep local knowledge and relationships of local specialist VADs. This is what we are building by acquiring well-established businesses with deep local roots and supporting them to grow.”
Founded in 2003, EPATRA boasts tier-one distribution contracts with the likes of Sony, LG, GoBright, Biamp and Sennheiser.
It claims to serve over 1,000 trading resellers from sales offices in the Netherlands and Belgium, and also has a 12,000 sq ft warehouse in Alblasserdam.
“M&A an important part of our strategy”
Northamber characterised its fiscal 2024 financial performance as “disappointing”, as revenues in the year to 30 June 2024 slumped 16% to £56m and pre-tax losses widened to £1.3m.
Gross margins, which are a key metric for the distributor, widened from 13.3% to 14.4%, however, while it also claimed it remained “number 1 or number 2 for most of our key supplier franchises”.
Northamber acknowledged that efforts to stimulate sales following a change in management last year “did not deliver the anticipated benefits”.
Recently departed MD Jeremy Keefe hasn’t been replaced, Phillips indicated.
“We have taken the decision to focus more on specialising the business under business unit leads,” he explained.
More M&A is likely, Phillips stressed.
“We see M&A as an important part of our strategy, especially as we double down on AV, UC, Cyber and Network Infrastructure. We will continue to review opportunities that align with our strategy,” he said.
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
