Resellers fall prey to multinational hawks

Simmons Magee and Data Supplies Group are the latest firms to be absorbed by multinational resellers in the UK market

Multinational resellers are strengthening their hold on the UK market, with Info Products finally sealing its deal with Simmons Magee, and Elcom snapping up Slough-based Data Supplies Group (DSG).

The Simmons Magee name will be lost and the Basingstoke and Richmond offices will close. Staff will have to wait up to three to five months to discover their fate. One source said: ?All the staff have been sweating bricks for months wondering about the future of their jobs. And it?s still going to drag on.?

An executive integration team will take on the huge task of merging the two firms with the intention of sorting out job cuts by 1 July.

The addition of Simmons Magee?s #60 million turnover gives Info Products ? already Europe?s biggest reseller ? UK sales of more than #200 million. Sources suggest the Dutch-owned reseller paid over #10 million for Simmons Magee.

Info Products MD John Trueman said: ?This puts us in the region of number two in the UK corporate reseller market, but we want to be number two by a clear margin. This is the first step in gaining #250 million of turnover through acquisitions.

American-owned Elcom has funded the #1.5 million purchase price of DS Group from UK resources. DS Group principal Ian Black, who has been pitching for a buyer for the past six months, will stay with the firm until the end of March.

There will be no redundancies, according to Phil Garnar, joint UK MD of Elcom. ?We?re glad the acquisition is completed,? he said. ?We want to keep the DS Group entity but there are obvious efficiencies we can benefit from. We bought them for their services business.?

DS Group has 95 staff; Elcom has 350.