Micro-P offloads reseller arm OYYY

Distributor says ownership of consumables VAR was a potential source of conflict with its resellers

Distributor Micro Peripherals (Micro-P) has offloaded the bulk of recent acquisition Advent Data's reseller activities, citing concerns over channel conflict.

Advent, which Micro-P bought in March, was primarily a supplies distributor but had two arms that sold directly to end users, Leco and OYYY.

Gerry O'Keefe, managing director of Micro-P, confirmed that OYYY – which punts consumables, printers and laptops to about 130,000 customers – was sold at the end of August to an undisclosed trade buyer, thought to be Halifax-based QC Supplies.

"We are a trade-only distributor and we could potentially see conflict with a number of our customers," O'Keefe told ChannelWeb.

OYYY and Leco contributed less than £10m of Advent's £129m turnover, Micro-P said at the time of the transaction.

O'Keefe said that Leco would remain part of Micro-P but stressed it is a miniscule operation in comparison with OYYY, employing just "a couple" of staff.

Alex Ward, commercial director at rival print distributor Midwich, said Micro-P's decision not to sell Leco could come back to haunt it.

"Why hold onto it?" he questioned. "At the end of the day it is a conflict of interest. If I was a reseller, I would be wary of working with a distributor that has a reseller arm in the local vicinity, no matter how large or small."

Ward added: "We have acquired a lot of businesses down the years and any with trade arms we would have done something about before we acquired the business."

QC Supplies was unavailable for comment at the time of publication. According to its website, the Halifax-based firm, which is part of the Quarry Court Group, boasts a turnover of over £50m and employs 155 staff.