Avnet Kicks Off 2011 with Multiple Business Moves

Avnet has kicked off 2011 with one acquisition (of itX Group Ltd.) and one divestiture (of New ProSys Corp.). The moves come shortly after Avnet announced some key end-of-2010 appointments to bolster its HP and IBM solutions groups. The distributor seems to be doing some serious moving and shaking. Here’s the update.

First, Avnet Technology Solutions has named two sales and service executives for HP and IBM solutions groups in North America. You may have heard about it back in December 2010. Dubbed “industry veterans,” Gale Brown will serve as VP of Services for the IBM Solutions Group and Phyllis McCullagh will be the VP of Field Sales in the HP Solutions Group. Avnet hopes their experience will position more channel sales and services, especially cloud-based IT data solutions with IBM solutions, and networking and SolutionPath sales with HP technology.

Now, Avnet starts 2011 with its completed acquisition of itX Group Ltd. (itX), which effectively doubles the distributor’s Australian IT presence. Avnet now has enough outreach to distribute brands including Oracle, IBM, HP, VMware, Apple and more across the entire continent. The transaction is set to be immediately accretive to earnings, and the 150-employee company comes with a large existing customer base for Avnet.

The company also announced it has shed New ProSys Corp., a value-added reseller and provider of IT infrastructure solutions. The sale goes to ACS Acquisition Corp., an affiliate of Applied Computer Solutions. The sale is no surprise; Avnet picked up ProSys in its larger Bell Microproducts acquisition in July 2010 and shortly after announced its plans to sell the VAR.

Avnet has worked closely with Applied Computer Systems in the past, so the distributor views the ProSys sale as a positive move for both companies. ProSys is known for its customized solutions for enterprise and educational markets, and Applied Computer Solutions is looking to expand its business with ProSys’s assets.

ProSys employs 360 people and had revenues of $417.9 million in the 12 months before June 2010, so the total consideration of ProSys’s sale includes “both a cash payment at closing and a three-year earn-out based upon ProSys’s anticipated results.”

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