Misco parent celebrates sales spike

Misco parent Systemax is in bullish form after logging a four per cent rise in quarterly revenues.

The New York-listed online VAR, which uses the Misco moniker in 14 European countries, posted total revenues of $752.3m (£491m) in the three months to 30 March, compared with $724.7m a year earlier. Net profit stood at $8.7m.

Boosted by its recent acquisition of CompUSA, North American technology product sales grew 21 per cent to $502.4m. Its US business is set to grow further as Systemax announced it this week won an auction to buy defunct retailer Circuit City’s ecommerce business.

Meanwhile, sales generated by Misco declined by 19 per cent in dollars to $203.9m but were flat in local currencies. That compares favourably with the two per cent year-on-year drop in local currency revenues logged in the previous quarter.

Group gross margin fell from 15.7 to 14.3 per cent, which Systemax attributed to its policy of offering freight discount incentives.

Richard Leeds, chief executive of Systemax, said: “Despite the prolonged economic downturn, Systemax has successfully grown market share across our businesses, including TigerDirect, CompUSA and Misco.

“Our North American operations continue to benefit from the successful addition of the CompUSA business. I am also pleased that, on a constant currency basis, we did not have a sales decline in our European technology products business, as our customer base in Europe is more business to business than consumer.”