Electrocomponents has acquired IESA, a B2B digital disruptor providing value-added services to manufacturing, process and production orientated industries, for a cash consideration of GBP88 million.
Founded in 2002 and headquartered in the Birchwood Science Park near Manchester, IESA employs approximately 500 people, providing value-added services in three key areas: procurement/sourcing; transaction processing; inventory and stores management. Its services allow clients to improve their efficiency and consolidate their indirect procurement vendor base via a cloud-enabled marketplace solution, MyMRO. The multi award winning MyMRO technology platform was developed specifically to meet the indirect procurement challenges of large-scale clients, integrating over 27,000 approved vendors with its proprietary marketplace and offering its client base complete invoice consolidation for all transactions.
The acquisition of IESA will enhance and accelerate the Electrocomponents value-added services offering, giving it additional capabilities to service larger corporate clients who choose to outsource their MRO and other indirect purchases and inventory management. IESA’s fully integrated indirect supply and comprehensive stores solutions complement Electrocomponents’ existing product and value-added service capabilities giving it a full service end-to-end solution for larger clients.
As part of Electrocomponents, IESA and its clients will benefit from the scale and international spread of the broader Group. Electrocomponents’ relations with international suppliers will further enable IESA to enhance its offering to its clients, whilst at the same time the Group’s international sales presence and digital capabilities should enable IESA to grow revenue at an even faster rate.
IESA management undertook an MBO in May 2012 supported by Gresham Private Equity and have grown its revenues four fold as well as completing the acquisition of Active Industrial Supply in 2017. Deloitte provided vendor due diligence on the transaction.
IESA CEO Glenn Timms, says: “We are excited to become part of the Electrocomponents Group and this represents the start of a third chapter for our organisation. Since launching as a digital disruptor and family business in 2002 and having an undertaken a management buyout in 2012, we are proud to have become a multi-national and multi GBP100 million turnover business operating in six countries, and this is testament to both our outstanding employees’ hard work and the faith and trust our clients and vendor partners have placed in us, together with the support and encouragement of our private equity investor Gresham who have been an invaluable partner over the last six years and we publicly express our gratitude accordingly, together with acknowledging the constructive guidance and advice of GCA Altium.
“As a proud new member of the Electrocomponents family we will be retaining our existing leadership team and will continue to operate as an independent unit, which is crucial to our business model. We will have significant opportunities to leverage the Group’s global infrastructure, resources and digital capability to drive faster growth and benefits for our clients, vendors and employees and are looking forward to the next phase of our development.”
Simon Inchley, CEO of Gresham, says: “We are delighted with our investment and successful sale of IESA and feel the business is now well placed for its next phase of growth under the ownership of Electrocomponents. It has been a pleasure working with management and we look forward to watching its continued progress and wish them every success for the future.”
GCA Altium CEO Phil Adams advised the shareholders on the sale, supported by vice president Tom Battersby and analyst Durgesh Panchani.
Adams says: “We are delighted to have been able to work alongside Gresham and the IESA management team. With its extensive global coverage, Electrocomponents represents an excellent partner with whom IESA can accelerate its own international ambitions, leveraging its digital platform.”
