Exertis: CU buy will help us nurture emerging tech

Distie says Computers Unlimited acquisition will pave the way for giving new firms a leg up into the channel

Exertis has said it will be able to spend more time helping up-and-coming tech firms crack the channel thanks to yesterday's acquisition of Computers Unlimited (CU).

Exertis' parent firm DCC snapped up the distributor, whose annual revenues reach the £140m mark, yesterday morning for £24m.

Speaking to CRN today, Exertis' managing director Gerry O'Keeffe (pictured) said the move will be good news for resellers looking to cash in on emerging technology from fledgling firms.

"What is likely to happen is there may be scenarios where we actually put brands that need a lot of care and nurturing, [in order] to enable them to gain oxygen, into the CU environment," he said. "It would give them the oxygen that is it sometimes hard to give as a bigger business. They are the kinds of brands that come to us on a day-to-day basis and are looking for representation in the UK and we want to work with them but we know it's difficult to do the job for them we'd like to do. So those are the kind of brands we will be directing towards CU."

O'Keefe added that CU has had great success building up once-small brands into well-known names in the business space, citing Sonos as a key example.

"That's a skill set which a company of Exertis' size really values," he added.

CU will continue to operate as a separate brand for "the foreseeable future", according to O'Keeffe, who said making huge changes to a business it so admires would not make sense.

"There is a lot of core strengths in what everybody does today so I would be loth to dilute that," he said.

"There are no plans regarding office [movements or closures]. If you look historically at the way we've done acquisitions, we've always maintained the business where it is because when you buy a business in distribution, what you're buying are relationships, and relationships are down to people, and people work in a place that is close to home. It is something we are very, very conscious of. We're driven by where people and the skill sets have developed."

But he added there would be "some logistics opportunities we need to focus on within the course of this coming year".