Founded in 1986, Hoffman is a supplier of workforce management and labor scheduling systems to the German retail market. It has a base of 2,500 installed systems in over 300 customers in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Poland, Romania, and the Czech Republic. It client base includes some of Germany largest retailers including Praktiker (Metro), Globus (Rewe), IKEA, Toys’R’Us, Douglas and EDKA.
For a small business it has a fantastic blue-chip customer base, said Chris Moore, Torex chief executive. We are already the market-leader in the UK in labor scheduling … and Hoffmann greatly increases our capability across Europe.
Hoffman is based in Bremen, Germany, and for the year ending December 31, 2004, it posted revenue of 2.5m euros ($3m).
The acquisition is just the latest in a number of acquisitions made by Torex as it looks to expand its business in mainland Europe and North America. Last week it paid GBP 70.5m ($128.7m) for XN Checkout Holdings, which claimed to be the market leader in the UK managed pubs and restaurant market, with 4,000 systems installed.
Prior to this, Torex spent $27.9m in May to acquire Retail Store Systems in order to break into the lucrative US market. Cumberland, Rhode Island-based Retail Store Systems was a systems integrator to the retail trade and a reseller of IBM hardware.
Other acquisitions include $3.9m for Flexiline Forecourt Services in January 2005; $55.5m for the retail division of Alphameric in November 2004; $6.9m for the 30.2% stake it did not own in Logware Information Systems; and $15.6m for non-food retail IT provider KPOS Computer Systems in August 2004.
The company itself was spun out of its parent Torex in January 2004, and in March 2004 it listed on London’s Alternative Investment Market. For the year ending December 31, 2004, it posted net income of GBP 4.89m ($9.3m) on revenue of GBP 67.9m ($128.8m).
