Roy Vallee, CEO of Avnet, said the firm is planning more acquisitions

Avnet chief alludes to further UK acquisitions

Distribution giant reveals ambitious expansion plans for UK and European marketplaces

Written by Sara Driscoll

Avnet’s recent shopping spree in the UK is far from over, according to the distribution giant’s chief executive Roy Vallee.
Speaking exclusively to CRN, Vallee said the firm was still very much on the look out for the right opportunities in the UK.
“We are looking to acquire more firms in Europe and we are certainly not done in the UK ­ the market is huge,” he said.
Only weeks ago Avnet acquired the enterprise infrastructure division of Magirus ­ a move that gave Avnet distribution rights to HP ­ to sit along side its recently expanded IBM and Sun teams (CRN Online, 19 July).
However, Vallee said the distributor was looking for a specific type of acquisition.
“There are two types of organisation we are looking for: the first would give us the opportunity after the acquisition to grow our business at a higher rate ­ for example we would love to acquire a firm rich in virtualisation and VMware skills with EMC or one that can bring us customer relationships, talent and local market knowledge,” he said.
Alastair Edwards, senior analyst at Canalys, said: “Avnet missed out to Arrow [in buying] Centia ­ a distributor that specialises in virtualisation. It appears on the surface that Avnet is following the infrastructure distribution route ­ getting into the complex solution space is where margin opportunity is higher. The problem is there are relatively few distribution firms available for acquisition that would give it the reach and competence in that space.”
Vallee also told CRN that the distributor will focus more on technologies such as storage, networking and security. In terms of his vendor wish-list, Valee said: “We have signed with Avaya in the US and we may bring this to Europe. Cisco has huge market share, so it would make it an obvious choice. We have been in dialogue with Cisco for a long period of time and we are looking for the right circumstances for this to happen.”

Further Reading
Avnet rejigs strategy to boost vendor focus

Avnet snaps up Magirus arm

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