Electron House Plc, which announced on Monday that it plans to sell its Australian and New Zealand electronics distribution business (CI No 2,683), has an absolute need to get into Europe, according to its chairman Robert Leigh. Despite its claim to be the market leader in the Southern Hemisphere countries, and the subsidiaries being very nice and very profitable, the company has no other presence in Asia, said Leigh. The buyer is Avnet Inc, the Great Neck, New York electronic components supplier with an insatiable appetite, which is paying ú17.7m. Leigh is confident that the deal with Electrowatt AG, whereby Electron will be merged with Electrowatt’s three subsidiaries known as Eurodis will go ahead some time between July 6 and July 15, following shareholder’s approval. Electrowatt is an electronics component distributor with offices in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland. At the interim stage to the end March it generated pre-tax profits of ú5.1m from turnover of ú115m. It is envisaged that the new Eurodis’s turnover will exceed ú300m. Electron is paying around ú60m for Eurodis, through a combination of a ú10m rights issue, the money from Avnet and the balance in a cash and shares mix. Approximately 90% of the balance will be shares, Leigh said. He added that Electron will have around 30% net gearing once the deal goes through. Electrowatt will hold around 40% of the enlarged Eurodis stock, which will be listed in the London Stock Exchange.
