Getronics changes hands again in €200m deal

New owner claims it will safeguard thousands of jobs after 'challenging period of transition' for Getronics

Getronics has sold up to British private equity house GSH Private Capital in a deal worth €200M.

The investment firm claims that the takeover will safeguard thousands of jobs across Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America following "a challenging period of transition" for Getronics.

GSH was previously a minority shareholder in Getronics. It claims the IT services firm has annual revenues of €300m and a 4,000-strong team serving some 2,000 customers globally.

The Amsterdam-HQ global IT services firm will now be led by Kenton Fine as executive chairman. Fine was previously group chairman and then group deputy chairman at multinational facility management comany Servest and then Atalian Servest.

GSH has also drafted in former MBCIB exec Mike Field as Getronics' new CFO and Andre Ribbens as its group transformational director.

"We're proud to be custodians of this venerable business," said Fine. "We have thousands of colleagues looking to this new management team for consistency and continuity.

"Getronics is a fantastic business driven by brilliant people. Client-focused services are deeply embedded in its DNA. It's up to us as the new leadership team to put the action behind the talk and make sure we keep our people and our customers happy."

This is the second time Getronics has been sold in the last three years. It's previous owner, US-Brazilian entraprenuer Nana Baffour, bought the business from asset management firm AURELIUS in July 2017 at a higher value of $220m

In 2018 Baffour led an expansion move into the US market, to acquire Kentucky-based MSP Pomeroy. Made possible through raising $815m in financing, Getronics at the time said that the M&A move doubled its revenues to $1.3bn.

After initially rebranding the MSP to Getronics' colours later that year, Pomeroy split from the Getronics business and became an independent company just nine months later under its previous CEO Chris Froman.

Baffour, who once told CPI that he would rather own Getronics than a gold mine, left the company in November last year as the firm looked to take on new investment and undergo a recapitalisation of the business.

The acquisition includes all Getronics' geographies - Argentina, Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Korea, Malaysia, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan and UK - apart from Belgium and Luxembourg, where due diligence has yet to be completed.