Mayo storage tech firm buys British company

CMS PERIPHERALS, the Mayo distributor of storage technology which has operations in Britain and Ireland, will have sales of €145 million this year following its acquisition of Yorkshire-based CCI Distribution.

The deal makes CMS Peripherals the largest independent data storage distributor in Britain and Ireland, according to Frank Salmon, founder and managing director of the firm.

Mr Salmon declined to say how much his firm had paid for CCI, saying it was a transaction between two privately held companies. It is the first acquisition by CMS.

Founded in 1998, CMS will now employ more than 175 staff, of which 50 are based at its headquarters in Kiltimagh, Co Mayo.

The Mayo firm has enjoyed three years of “consistent revenue growth of 9-10 per cent”, according to Mr Salmon, despite the slowdown in the economy on both sides of the Irish Sea.

“The storage market actually benefits from people staying at home more and downloading more stuff,” said Mr Salmon. “It’s a fairly resilient sector.”

CMS distributes business and consumer storage products – from disaster recovery software to hard drives – to resellers and large retailers and has also developed the Disgo brand of consumer electronics.

The Yorkshire company’s brand will be maintained for at least the rest of the year. Mr Salmon said the deal brings new products and customers into the CMS group and was “good news for Mayo, because it will help create more opportunities for the team there”.

Although the bulk of its business is in Britain – Ireland will account for just €24 million of revenues this year – the company’s finance and head office functions are run from Mayo.

“We saw a great opportunity to buy a like-minded, successful distribution business that would offer our customers a broader range of storage solutions,” said Mr Salmon. “The acquisition will also support our three-year business objective of 20 per cent annual growth that would take us to turnover of €250 million.”

Mr Salmon said CMS would focus on successfully integrating CCI’s business but he saw the opportunity to do more deals like this.

“There’s a lot of good value in the market at the moment, because there are a lot of distressed companies in the distribution space,” he said. “We will maintain our strategy of organic growth but will also be looking for other opportunities.”