Printerland swoops in as fellow VAR hits the wall

Liquidators appointed to wind up The Printer Store in January

Printerland has vowed to keep on making bolt-on acquisitions, following its deal for wound-up print reseller The Printer Store.

Founded in 1993 and based in Fareham, Hampshire, The Printer Store partners with print vendor OKI and has around 12,000 customers, mainly in the SME space.

Following a meeting of creditors in January, Mackenzie Goldberg Johnson was appointed as liquidator to wind up The Printer Store on 27 January, according to documents filed on The London Gazette. But fellow print VAR Printerland stepped in and bought the company's assets out of liquidation at the start of March.

The deal was for the website, customer base and the accreditations of The Printer Store, which will be integrated within the Printerland brand, and did not include any of its staff, offices or debt.

Printerland managing director James Kight told CRN he was attracted to The Printer Store's customer base and indicated the acquisition, for an undisclosed amount, may not be the last Printerland makes.

"It just strengthens our position more with OKI," he said. "We are their leading partner by far in Europe and this was a nice little bolt-on. They did quite well in education - that was their biggest market - and that's what attracted us to [the company].

"Acquisitions like this are the way we are going to go," he said. "We are totally on the lookout for adding quality small dealerships to our portfolio, especially around managed print resellers. We see the managed print market as a massive growth area for us and even verging on the copier side of things. The two markets were pretty separate historically but they are becoming more merged into one."

Printerland is looking to cross-sell its print portfolio and provide managed support to The Printer Store's customer base, Kight said.

Four years ago, Printerland opened an office in South Africa and it launched a base in Miami last year. Kight said the firm's strategy is based around consolidating its positions in South Africa and the US as well as through inorganic and organic growth in the UK.