Advent of a new era as distributer bought in £25m deal

A distributor of printer cartridges has been snapped up by a subsidiary of Irish industrial group DCC plc in a deal which could be worth up to £25m.

Micro P bought Advent Data for an initial cash sum of £10.2m. It will pay further cash of up to £15m based on Advent’s trading in 2012, 2013 and 2014.

Advent is a leading distributor of electronic office supplies to a broad range of resellers, retailers and e-tailers in the UK. Based in Elland it has 111 employees.

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It was founded in London 20 years ago and deals with more than 1,000 customers each year including office supplies and stationery companies, internet retailers and general IT resellers.

Founder Raj Advani, who launched the business from a single room, will stay on for at least three years.

He said: “It’s a big decision selling your baby.

“But once I met the management teams I knew it was the right decision.

“The ethos of the two businesses is very similar. The management team of DCC and Micro P were very fair in the whole process.

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“Finance is not the driving factor. These guys wanted it and they told me they wanted me to stay on and run it. That shows me they want to build the business and invest in it.

“There’s very little crossover between the two businesses.”

Advent, founded in Wembley, moved its entire operations to Yorkshire in 2003.

Tommy Breen, DCC chief executive, said: “Advent is highly complementary to DCC SerCom’s reseller distribution business in the UK in terms of product range and customer base.

“This acquisition will significantly strengthen DCC’s market position in the electronic office supplies market.”

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Advent mainly distributes a broad range of electronic products including inkjet and laser print cartridges from suppliers such as Brother, Canon, Dell, Epson, Konica Minolta, Lexmark and Samsung.

Advent’s adjusted operating profits for the year ended August 31, 2010 were £3.9m on revenues of £128.9m.

At the end of August it had adjusted net tangible operating assets of £10.2m.

DCC, which is listed on both the London and Irish stock exchanges, acquired 100 per cent of the share capital of Advent based on an enterprise value of £20.8m, including average net debt of £6.2m.

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Advent will form part of DCC’s SerCom business. This sells a broad range of IT, communications and consumer products, focused on the small and medium-sized business and home markets.

Advent received corporate finance advice from Oliver Hoffman and Rob Burton at Mazars.

Peter Barton and Jonathan Asquez at Gordons provided legal advice.

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