WStore reviews French deal
Online reseller in discussions to buy Inmac in France
Online reseller WStore is in discussions to acquire French reseller Inmac following an examination of the accounts of the former Micro Warehouse division.
WStore said it will make a concrete decision to the acquisition after the accounts review.
Tony Davis, managing director of WStore, told CRN: “We are in discussions with French Inmac and we are taking all its operations into consideration, but these things can take time.”
Until 2004 Inmac comprised of trading divisions in Britain and France, owned by Micro Warehouse, which in turn was owned by investment firm Gores Technology Group.
However, in May 2004 Gores sold the UK arm of Inmac along with Micro Warehouse to the Dixons Group and it is now part of Dixon’s PC World Business division.
Ownership of the French Inmac division was retained by Gores.
Johnathan Wall, EMEA marketing director at rival reseller dabs.com, said that dabs had also launched an acquisition attempt on Inmac in 2004, but it had never materialised.
He admitted however, that a potential WStore purchase of Inmac would create competition for dabs’ own French software-focused division, SOS Developers.
“It would be a strategic move to give WStore more volume in France. The acquisition would create competition for us in France, but our division over there is much less hardware focused than Inmac,” he said.
WStore generated £6.7m from software sales last year, and in July announced plans to grow licensing sales from its primary software vendors by more than 50 per cent, roughly £4.3m, within a year. The firm created a seven-strong software-focused sales team headed by business manager John Gorton to help it achieve this growth (CRN, 25 July).