Exclusive Networks becomes euro billionaire
Distributor vows to keep on doubling in size every two years after latest acquisition propels turnover beyond €1bn
Exclusive Networks has broken through its long-stated €1bn revenue target - a year ahead of schedule - courtesy of its biggest ever acquisition.
The Paris-headquartered VAD this week announced the buy-out of €200m-plus-revenue player Transition Systems in a move that will transform its Asia-Pac business.
Despite breaking through the €1bn magic marker a year ahead of target, Exclusive has vowed to continue doubling in size every two years.
Headquartered in Singapore, Transition Systems runs a further 17 offices across seven other countries. It gives its buyer a direct presence in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, as well as an office in Australia, where Exclusive already operates. The two firms claim that the Singaporean distributor's portfolio overlaps with that of its new owner by more than 50 per cent.
Barrie Desmond, chief operating officer at Exclusive Group, told CRN sister publication Channelnomics Europe that his firm's latest addition would take on the Exclusive brand name more or less immediately - as per the wishes of its incumbent management team. Despite this representing the largest buyout in Exclusive's acquisitive history, the operations chief asserted that the distributor would approach the integration process with a characteristically "light touch".
"The key thing about us is that the integration is driven by the business [that we have bought]," he explained. "Some of our competitors might embark on a one- or two-year SAP project - that they are still working on five years down the line. Others have given up completely and decided to go to low-cost economies to try and realise efficiencies.
"We think that is the absolute wrong approach. Even though we are now a global business, we take a local, federated approach. Our business is run by local management teams, or the [former] owner entrepreneurs [of the companies we have acquired]."
One of the first and biggest cross-sell opportunities will be taking Exclusive's big data-focused Big Technology brand into south-east Asia, stated Desmond. He predicted that, in three years' time, half of Exclusive's revenue could be drawn from infrastructure, and half from its core cybersecurity business. This compares with a current split of 85 to 15 per cent.
Despite hitting its cherished €1bn sales target, the distributor plans to keep on growing strongly, he insisted.
"We have doubled our revenues every two years, and we do not see any reason why we cannot continue to do that for the foreseeable future by continuing to execute organically and pursue our acquisition strategy," Desmond (pictured) added.
Having hugely increased its coverage of Asia with the Transition Systems buyout, the biggest gap in Exclusive's coverage of major geographic markets would now appear to be to the Americas. While Desmond refused to be drawn on whether the distributor's next acquisition target might be on the other side of the Atlantic, he stressed that the firm is open to all opportunities.
"As we have said consistently, we would never overlook a good acquisition target or partnering target, and there are various directions in which our acquisition strategy will go," he added.