Dual agenda for Avnet

Distributor will continue to invest for growth while chopping out costs, EMEA president confirms

Avnet Technology Solutions will continue to cut costs while investing in high-growth parts of its business or acquisitions, EMEA president Graeme Watt has confirmed.

The distributor last week swooped on pan-European rival Magirus, extending its presence into four new European countries and broadening its relationship with vendors including Cisco, VCE, F5, Juniper and Veeam.

The move came just one working day after Avnet TS announced it is undergoing a UK restructuring process that could see it shut the Leeds office it inherited through its 2010 acquisition of Bell.

Staff whose jobs are potentially at risk have entered into a 30-day consultation process, while Paul Cook - one of three Avnet TS UK sales directors - has already stepped down as part of the restructure.

Talking to ChannelWeb, Watt (pictured) said the two announcements, while independent of each other, mirror Avnet's dual strategy of driving efficiencies and investing for growth.

"We will continue to look at ways of increasing efficiencies and taking out costs, sometimes altogether and sometimes redeploying it to invest in other areas or into value-creating M&A opportunities such as the Magirus acquisition," he said.

Magirus has traditionally drawn close to a fifth of its $530m (£338m) revenue from the UK, where the deal will hand Avnet new franchises with the likes of Cisco and VCE.

"There is very little overlap between what Magirus does and where it has its key franchises, and what we do. It is highly complementary and takes us into Denmark, Italy, Spain and Portugal," said Watt.

"This will allow us to build an organisation of extremely high-quality individuals which can become the envy of the industry."

Watt said it is too early to talk about integration or branding plans, emphasising that the deal is not set to close until October at the earliest. "We will be prepared to make a statement early on in the process but need to get all the facts on the table before we make any decisions," he said.