Santa Ana’s Ingram Micro Inc., the biggest distributor of technology products, software and consumer electronics, is set to shutter some of its Scandinavian operations as part of efforts to cut costs and boost profits.
Ingram said it intends to sell or close its businesses in Demark, Finland and Norway and focus on operations in Sweden, where it gets better profits.
The company already found a buyer for its distribution business in Denmark.
It’s agreed to sell the assets of those operations to Germany’s Actebis Group AG, Europe’s third largest technology goods distributor.
Terms of the deal, which is expected to close in the third quarter, weren’t disclosed.
Ingram said it expects its Finland and Norway operations to be closed by the end of the current quarter.
Sales from Ingram’s Scandinavian operations were small. Revenue from the company’s operations in Denmark, Finland and Norway totaled about $450 million in sales for 2008.
Ingram’s total yearly sales are about $34 billion.
The Scandinavian operations were not “meeting our requirements for profitability and return on invested capital,” Chief Executive Greg Spierkel said in a statement. “By re-positioning these operations, we are able to build a profitable, stand-alone broad-based business in Sweden, where Ingram Micro enjoys both a solid market position and good growth prospects.”
The moves, along with other cost saving measures such as some 300 job cuts in the U.S., are expected to save roughly $100 million to $120 million annually starting at the end of this year, Spierkel said.
Ingram Micro’s shares fell 2% on a recent market value of about $2 billion.
