History (1991): Computer 2000 to Buy Jod Electronique

In a few days, we ought to read about the buying of the financial troubled company Jod Electronique (Trappes, France) by the successful Computer 2000 AG (Munich, Germany).

As of now, the announcement was not official nor its terms disclosed. The German distributor owns subsidiaries in several European countries, but not yet in France.

In FY91, ended September 30, the business volume of the German group, that names itself the “American computer industry’s bridge to Europe“, distributor of PC-related products, increased from DM604.8 million to DM1.1 billion (or approximately $650 million).

Following adjustments to include acquisitions, these figures amount an internal growth rate of 59% or an increase of DM360 million.

Jochen Tschunke, COB, reported that this fiscal year was one of the most successful to date for the distribution and service company founded in 1983 and sells exclusively through PC dealers.

Since November 1, Computer 2000 shares are traded on the Frankfurt stock exchange.

In the storage segment, this firm distributes notably Irwin, Storage Dimensions, Iomega and Quantum.

On its side, the French firm Jod, subsidiary of Digital Design, just like many other French distribution companies, encountered financial problems this year.

MB Electronique is another example. Last year, according to Jacques Ouanono, chairman of Jod, the company reported FF105 million sales. Its success on the beginning came from reselling Seagate’s HDDs. Now the company resells products from Western Digital, Colorado, Sony, Cygnet, Futur Domain, Emerald, Conner Peripherals, Storage Dimensions and Sankyo Seiki.

On October 15, 1991, in a press release, Tschunke had already said: “The acquisition of new interests is presently in the offing in the remaining West European markets not presently covered by Computer 2000, namely France, Portugal, Norway and Denmark.”

In 1991, before the acquisition of Jod, 3 foreign companies joined the group. In addition to the known interests in the Expander Informatic Group (Stockholm, Sweden) and EIS (Milano, Italy), Fintronic AB (Helsinski, Finland) has recently came in to the group which owns 60% of the Finnish distributor. UK-based Frontline Distribution Ltd., the second largest company in the group with sales of $140 million, was fully consolidated for the first time. Computer 2000 GmbH in Austria is the third one with revenues of $29 million, followed by Computer 2000 in Switzerland with $35.5 million. The Spanish Computer 2000 SA grew to over $25 million and the Belgian Computer 2000 BV to almost $15 million. Computer 2000-Softkey in the Netherlands was fully consolidated for the first time with annual sales of just over $8 million.

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue ≠46, published on November 1991.