Financially troubled Metrologie International SA, once France’s leading distributor of information systems, has sold off its direct sales group in an attempt to stop the decline in its revenue stream, La Tribune-Defosses reports. By selling the division as part of its ongoing restructuring, Metrologie, whose sales dropped 19.7% in the first half of 1993 compared to the first half of 1992, hopes to return to its original trade of indirect, wholesale sales, carrying over 20,000 items and 100 brands. Metrologie reported a 1992 pre-tax loss of $35.8m on revenues of approximately $456m. Alain Frainberger, president of Metrologie, was quoted saying the sale of the direct sales group – $43.9m in revenues, 35 employees – would be made official next week. The buyer must hire the staff and take over support of the customers, and commit to buy a guaranteed amount of products from Metrologie for the first year, he said. The article further quotes the bulletin Le Quotidien de l’Informatique as saying that the buyer would be the Euralliance Group’s Solutions Informatique SA. Metrologie expects the refocusing on indirect sales will improve its relations with its reseller customers, who had come to view the company as a competitor, and with manufacturers who want a wholesaler-distributor as their middle man. Frainberger seems to have been inspired by the big distributors in the US, the article says. It cites a growth rate for wholesale distributors in the US last year of 40% on average, compared with only 2% for the top 10 hardware manufacturers and 26% for the top 10 software publishers. Our distribution and restructuring costs represented $180m, or 40% of our revenues in 1991, he said. They will be only $51m in 1993 and $39m in 1994. We expect in the short term to have the same cost structure as our US competitors, he said.
