Maverick gets Splashed in take-over of sister company

Audiovisual distributor takes the helm at Splash AV

Audiovisual (AV) distributor Maverick is hoping to make waves in the AV sector after taking over its sister firm Splash AV.

Splash, whose vendors include Acer, Sharp and Mitsubishi, was set up three years ago as a separate company by Maverick's holding company VPH, with several Maverick brands transferred to Splash.

Jon Sidwick, Maverick?s group managing director, said the Splash brand will be retained under the creation of a new division called splash@maverick. "We will have a dedicated Splash sales team that will support existing business relationships and target new opportunities," he said.

No redundancies have been made as a result of the merger, but some staff were unable to relocate from Splash's offices in Birmingham to Maverick's base in Reading, Sidwick said. He added that the managerial structure has remained the same.

Asked the reasoning behind the take-over, Sidwick said: "We felt we needed a specialist broadline arm within Maverick, but we also needed extra resources to focus on the ProInstall business we launched in September 2004."

ProInstall is Maverick's installation business that provides a fixed price service. Sidwick claimed the growth of the service has been enormous, and he is predicting a good 2005. "We aim to have over 150 employees in the next few months," he said.

Colin Messenger, senior business consultant at AV analyst Decision Tree Consulting, said: "I think the takeover occurred because Maverick was performing better than Splash. They will certainly be looking to get the Splash brand moving faster now it falls under Maverick."

"They've built the ProInstall business up from nothing and it's been a huge success. It's probably the biggest installation service in the UK.

"It's good news for resellers as between them, the two firms have huge range of products."