Exclusive Networks forms presence in Ireland with acquisition

French distributor had previously sold into Ireland but had not had a base there

Exclusive Group has made its first acquisition in Ireland through buying up Dublin-based VAD NextGen for an undisclosed sum.

The deal, which was closed on 3 July, cements Exclusive Group's first physical presence in the Irish market.

Based in Dublin, and with an admin office in Wexford, NextGen has been in business since 2009 and counts Palo Alto Networks, Proofpoint, Arbor Networks and A10 Networks among its vendor partners.

The France-based distributor claims that NextGen's management team will remain in place, with country manager Gerry Sheldrick charged with leading further expansion in the Irish market.

Speaking to CRN sister publication Channelnomics Europe, Exclusive Group's COO Barrie Desmond said that the acquisition has trebled its customer base in Ireland.

"We do quite a bit of business in Ireland, but you can't really be in the business unless you've got a platform or a footprint. So this really ticks both boxes: it gets us in, but it also gets us in with a like-minded company that was set up on the basis that we were set up: to introduce new technologies to the marketplace," he said.

"We had a pod of people working in the territory, but this is the first time we've had a physical presence. We will obviously take on the existing vendors they have in Palo Alto Networks and Proofpoint which brings a lot of synergy straight away. It builds on our customer base as well… this trebles our customer base there."

The COO said the expansion play is not linked to recent developments from some of the UK's biggest resellers - Computacenter and Softcat - which have also set up entities in Ireland. Desmond brushed this off as "a coincidence".

"Obviously the guys at Softcat, they seem to be employing a similar strategy to us in terms of expansion. It is quite obvious there is a huge amount of datacentre and cloud activity [in Ireland] and a huge amount of investment," he said.

"Ireland was at the brunt of the property crash of 2007/2008, but it really is vibrant again now. There is a huge amount of investment going into IT infrastructure still and it is seen as one of the datacentre capitals of the world. It has a good synthesis with us being strong in cyber and cloud migration."

The news comes just days after Desmond said that that Exclusive Group was "within weeks" of closing an acquisition in Europe.

The distributor recently changed ownership, and is now being backed by London-based Permira which gave Exclusive a £1.1bn injection. The firm also revealed that it turned down takeover approaches from some of the world's largest IT distributors.

Exclusive Group is gunning for €10bn (£8.85bn) revenues within the next five years. 2017 sales increased by 38 per cent to €1.75bn.