Ingram Micro Inc. had a good run on Wall Street during Gregory Spierkel’s reign as chief executive, according to a recent recap by technology analysts at Raymond James & Associates.
The Santa Ana-based company grew revenue in excess of $7 billion, an annual growth rate that averaged 4% during Spierkel’s tenure, which began in June 2005 and ended with his resignation this month.
Ingram is the biggest distributor of computers, software and other technology products in the world and the largest public company based in Orange County with almost $35 billion in annual sales.
The financial-performance breakdown also revealed:
• Operating margins improved modestly, reaching 1.4% in 2007 and 2010, but declined to 1.1% within the last year because of operational challenges. The company makes pennies on the dollar.
• Share price increased from about $10.55 in the second quarter of 2005 to about $20.34 in the third quarter of 2011 for a gain of almost 93%. The New York Stock Exchange composite lost 3.4% in that same period.
Analysts also noted Spierkel oversaw more than 16 acquisitions at the helm, steering Ingram into a number of new markets, including consumer electronics, data capture/point of sale, and hardware for large companies.
Raymond James viewed the announcement of Spierkel’s departure as “somewhat surprising” but suspected a transition was in the works after the company rehired Alain Monie as president and chief operating officer in October and named him director a month later.
Monie was promoted to chief executive earlier this month. He returned to Ingram after a year, serving as chief executive of Asia Pacific Resources International Ltd., a China-based manufacturer of fiber, pulp and paper.
“His return to Ingram after a brief CEO stint raised questions about a potential succession plan, particularly following some operational challenges Ingram experienced in 2011,” Brian Alexander, director of technology research at St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Raymond James, wrote in a Jan. 19 note to investors. “We believe Monie has very strong operational skills and should help improve the company’s consistency of execution, which we have noted has been an issue over the past few years.”
Ingram is undergoing a systems overhaul designed to improve automation, operations and services for customers and vendors around the world. The changeover went smoothly in Singapore, New Zealand, Chile, the Netherlands, Belgium and Indonesia, but problems installing software and hardware at its Australian operation dogged the company for most of 2011, bringing down earnings in the process.
Raymond James analysts don’t expect a strategic or capital-allocation shift in the wake of Monie’s leadership change.
DDi Rebuttal
A 28-minute film funded by Newt Gingrich supporters that chronicles DDi Corp.’s demise under Bain Capital LLC is “inaccurate” and a “disservice” to the company’s turnaround, Chief Executive Mikel Williams said.
The ad against Mitt Romney and the Boston-based investment bank he once led was released before the South Carolina primary and paints a picture of corporate raiders reaping financial windfalls after selling DDi shares, before it filed for bankruptcy in 2003 and cut 2,100 jobs. The company’s downfall was fueled by the dot-com bust when “all industrial players were hit,” Williams said.
“A good number of companies went away,” he said. “DDi did not go away.”
The Anaheim-based company makes circuit boards that later are assembled with chips.
The film does not mention that DDi emerged from bankruptcy and has been profitable for years.
The company posted an adjusted profit of $20 million on $267 million in revenue in 2010.
DDi employs about 330 people in Anaheim and more than 1,600 companywide.
YouMail Strikes Deal
Irvine-based software maker YouMail Inc. has struck a deal with LetsTalk.com to have its visual voicemail service preloaded on many Android and BlackBerry devices sold through the online retailer.
YouMail counts more than 2 million users and this deal could add “hundreds of thousands” annually, Chief Executive Alex Quilici said.
“We view this deal as being material,” Quilici said. “My goal would be to preload on it every cell phone that’s sold. We’ll see how far we get to that goal.”
YouMail has raised nearly $13 million since its launch in 2007.
Irvine-based Tech Coast Angels, VantagePoint Capital Partners in Silicon Valley and Santa Monica-based Siemer Ventures in Santa Monica are among investors.
Basic service is free for users. The company’s premium subscriptions, which offer services such as transcribing voice messages in minutes, cost $4.99 to $39.99 a month.
YouMail’s applications, including voice greetings, caller identification and sharing, are accessible via smart phones such as iPhone, BlackBerry and Google Android devices, and other mobile operating systems.
