Intrinsic rescues Dataplex from administration
Ambitious VAR plans acquisition spree after tying up first ever deal
Intrinsic Technology has acquired the trade, certain assets and the goodwill of fellow Mancunian VAR Dataplex Systems, which went into administration before Christmas owing distributors a seven-figure sum.
Unified communications specialist Intrinsic said the move will strengthen its position in the adjacent desktop and server virtualisation and storage markets, as well as adding £10m to its top line.
In a statement, Intrinsic managing director Mike Mason said the Cisco and Nortel partner is planning to make a series of acquisitions to bolster its cloud computing proposition. Dataplex is its first-ever deal.
“We reached a stage where we could effectively integrate a strong channel solutions provider with a complementary proposition into the business," he said. "Acquisitive growth is a key step in our growth strategy and Dataplex is an excellent fit.”
Dataplex, which has 30 staff across its Manchester and Oxford offices, entered administration on 23 December.
David Whitehouse and Sarah Bell of MCR Corporate Restructuring were made joint administrators and a sale memorandum was issued on 24 December.
According to the memorandum, Dataplex had outstanding debts totalling £1.11m as of 20 December. Its book debt was to be excluded from any sale of the business or assets, however, unless specifically required by the purchaser.
The memorandum also said Dataplex had prepared management accounts as of November 2010 showing an after-tax net loss of £66,000 on turnover of £8.1m.
John Toal, UK country manager at distributor Avnet, indicated that the major distributors had been working closely with Dataplex to try to avoid such a situation arising.
“We have been working with Dataplex for quite a while to help them recover the situation and this was an unexpected move in terms of them going into administration, although we were aware that they were having issues,” he said.
“We expect the amount [owed to Avnet] to be a loss, which is not a great start to the year. But we are being diligent as always. Dataplex was our biggest issue of 2010, but we can't afford for instances like this to affect our judgement on other credit decisions in the channel. Credit has and always will be an issue in the channel.”
Nitin Joshi, founder of ChannelMoney, said: “There are a lot of large creditors and great concern. There are demands for a full investigation. The first question is why this company went bust when it had the continued support from its main suppliers. Suppliers were working closely, or so they thought, with the director.”
For the year ending 30 November, Intrinsic more than doubled operating profit to £2.5m on turnover that rose 35 per cent to £28m. EMC, HP, Citrix and VMware partner Dataplex banked an after-tax profit of £249,000 on sales of £8.9m in the 12 months to 31 December 2009, according to recently filed accounts.
In a statement, Richard Sparrow, managing director of Dataplex, said: “Intrinsic Technology and Dataplex are an ideal fit and the combination of the two companies will create a leading force in the delivery of end-to-end ICT services.”