AVMI follows financial clients into Irish market

£50m-plus firm moves to Dublin as UK-based financial firms seek post-Brexit EU base

Audiovisual player AVMI has opened up shop in Dublin to cater for financial services customers that want a presence in the EU after Brexit, CEO Edward Cook told CRN.

AVMI already has bases in London, New York, Hong Kong and Belfast, but Cook said that financial clients have now pulled it into the Republic of Ireland in a bid to second-guess and fallout from the UK leaving the EU.

"We are seeing a lot of demand from our existing client base for projects overseas, in Ireland but also all over the world," he said.

"A lot of our big banking clients are considering the implications of Brexit and are all looking at moving staff to Dublin, as well as Frankfurt and Paris.

"The other reason we are excited about Dublin is that we are seeing a lot of interest from the new technology businesses - the Facebooks and the Googles. They are a client set that we are keen to expand on."

Cook said that he expects sales from the Dublin office to contribute around 10 per cent of AVMI's total revenue in around three years' time, adding that the base also allows the firm to have its own insurance against any Brexit unrest.

AVMI is not entirely new to the Dublin scene, having carried out several multimillion-pound projects in the area, the CEO said, but it now plans to turn the office into a "major hub".

The firm, which acquired rival Focus 21 in May, is now the largely AV specialist partner in the UK, according to CRN's recent Audiovisual Provider Report (available exclusively to CRN Essential subscribers).

For the year ending 31 June 2017 AVMI reported revenue of £56.5m, but Cook said that unaudited numbers for its last financial year put sales in the mid-£60m region.