‘We’ve gone from no business outside the UK to significant sales coming from Europe’: Northamber carries on Benelux expansion with Sahara swoop

Alex Phillips talks about the distributor’s European plans and more

Northamber’s subsidiary, Epatra, acquired Dutch AV distributor Sahara Benelux to enhance its presence in the European audiovisual market.

This comes shortly after the British distie announced the takeover of Epatra earlier this month, with the company referring to the move as a way to strengthen its “position in the audiovisual market and enhance its portfolio of offerings to customers in Europe.”

CRN sat down with Alex Phillips, chairman of Northamber, to understand how the new merger falls within the company’s European strategy and how this fosters its ambitions for the year to come.

Phillips explains that he expects Sahara to bring “some core existing Northamber vendors and some very strong local reseller relationships into Epatra, helping us replicate our UK strategy.”

He says this will complement Epatra’s offer, which already gave the company “a chance to acquire a longstanding, well-known AV and smart office distributor with over a thousand trading resellers, many strong brand names, and great in-country logistics and operations to act as our core route to market into Benelux.”

The chairman also adds that this was a Northamber originated acquisition.

“I have known of Sahara Benelux and [Bernard Gosselink, director of Sahara], for a long time and held them in high regard.

“We share some core vendors in the UK like Matrox and Christie Digital a long-term AVM vendor.

“We saw the opportunity to combine the breadth of traded base and legacy of Epatra with the specialist, long term relationships Sahara Benelux to create a win-win for all parties including vendors and resellers in the territory.”

European strategy

Phillips says that the acquisition is part of the company’s wider strategy in Europe and especially within the Benelux, which started with the acquisition of comms and collaboration solutions provider Tempura Communications in April 2024.

According to him, these investments in the region will aim “to help combine deep in-country relationships and capabilities with the ability to more easily support roll outs across the UK and Benelux.”

The firm also acquired Irish cybersecurity VAD Renaissance Contingency Services in July 2024, “to provide a significant European footprint to support [Northamber’s] vendors and customers.”

“Within the last 12 months we have gone from almost no business outside the UK to having a significant proportion of our sales coming from Europe, and we expect to see continued growth there,” says Phillips.

“Our focus will remain around AV, UC&C, cybersecurity, network infrastructure and peripherals, underpinned by our value-add services wrap Avail+.”

Launched in 2024, Avail+ aims to support resellers with pre-sales, installation, and post-sales support, to help set up IT and AV solutions without the need for in-house expertise.