SCH sells off distribution arm for £219m

SIR Peter Rigby’s Birmingham-based Specialist Computer Holdings (SCH) has sold its distribution arm to a US technology giant for an estimated £219m.

Its Specialist Distribution Group has been bought by NASDAQ -listed Tech Data Corporation, one of the world’s largest wholesale distributors of technology products.

The move will allow SCH to concentrate on its higher margin services division, Specialist Computer Centres (SCC).

SCH – Europe’s largest independent technology group – says it will reinvest the deal consideration in SCC.

James Rigby, SCC’s managing director, said: “Our clear strategy is to position SCC as the technology and cloud solutions partner of choice for mid-sized companies and government organisations.

“We see huge potential in the market opportunity which sits between global SIs [system integrators] and local players, where there are few quality partners in that space who have our range and depth.”

Sir Peter Rigby, SCH group chairman and chief executive, said: “SCH has successfully operated both SDG and SCC for 25 years. With a consolidating channel, the opportunity to maximise our return on investment and deploy a single focused strategy with SCC has become more apparent.

“Having engaged with Tech Data, SCH has come to view the disposal of SDG as a fantastic opportunity where its unique strengths can be better developed within a global parent with distribution as its core focus.

“The deal enables SCH to concentrate on high margin segments of the technology industry, including storage, intelligent networks, virtualisation, data centre technologies and the cloud through its technology, solutions and services brand, SCC.

“The deal accelerates investment into the next stage of SCC’s evolution.  For the first time in the group’s history there is a single focus and concentration on what has always been our core business. 

“The deal enables immediate release of capital to bring forward SCC’s next phase of growth.”

PwC and DLA Piper advised SCH on the deal. PwC partner Matt Waddell, who led the advisory team, said:  “We are absolutely delighted to have been able to advise SCH, Europe’s largest privately owned technology group, on this landmark transaction.

“SDG is a market leading European value distributor and this successful transaction will release significant funding to allow the group to focus on the significant cloud and networking opportunities available to SCC.”