Acal sees opportunities for acquisitions to strengthen its distribution and services business across Europe.
The component distributor and services company has reported a first half loss of £8m but chairman Richard Moon believes the company’s strong cash position puts it in a good position to take advantage of acquisition opportunities in the market.
“Acquisitions are not out of the questions. We have cash resources and this gives us the opportunity to take advantage in the current economic climate,” Moon told Electronics Weekly.
Acal received around £16m from the sale of MessageLabsGroup to Symantec which was completed in November.
Moon said a particular focus was to strengthen the products services business, but he also said there could be opportunities for acquisitions in the electronic components distribution business.
“There are undoubtedly opportunities there,” said Moon. “This is a different market to the one of just six months ago.”
Deals are likely to be struck to strengthen the distributor’s geographic coverage in Europe as well as adding to the product portfolio.
Moon said revenues in the electronic components business were slightly up during the first half “and this was in a market which was 5% down, so we have gained market share”. Sales in the electronics business were £51.3m in the first half.
He highlighted improved figures from Germany and Scandinavia.