Alain Monie will rejoin Santa Ana-based Ingram Micro Inc. as president and chief operating officer in November after a year spent heading a manufacturer in China.
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 nearly $35 billion in sales in 2010.
Monie will be responsible for all of Ingram’s operating units and report to Chief Executive Gregory Spierkel. The company’s four regional presidents and executive vice president of global logistics will report to Monie.
Monie, 60, joined Ingram as executive vice president in January 2003 and was appointed president of the Asia-Pacific region a year later. He was named president and chief operating officer in 2007, and remained in those posts until leaving to become chief executive of Asia Pacific Resources International Ltd., a China-based manufacturer of fiber, pulp and paper.
The position remained unfilled since Monie’s departure last year, an executive said.
He will arrive back at Ingram shortly after the company reports its third-quarter results, which are expected to reflect a glitch on an overhaul of its Australian operations that soured earnings in the prior two earnings periods.
The company has said it has fixed the problems and is now working to regain key customers lost to other competitors in the region during the past six months.
Ingram posted a first-quarter profit of $56.3 million, down 20% from a year earlier.
Analysts were forecasting a profit of $76 million.
· Headquarters: Santa Ana
· Business: information technology distributor
· Founded: 1979
· Ticker symbol: IM (NYSE)
· Market value: about $2.84 billion
· Notable: Rehired Alain Monie as president, chief operating officer
In the second quarter, Ingram saw operating income in the Asia-Pacific market, which includes Australia, plummet nearly 45% to $16.5 million compared with a year earlier. Executives blamed the decline on “complications migrating to a new enterprise system” and said without Australia, the region grew sales at a double-digit clip.
Ingram executives have declined to give an outlook on the third quarter. They have said the lingering effects of the disruption will hurt sales in Australia once again.
Analysts on average are forecasting profits in the September quarter of $69.2 million on revenue of $8.9 billion, up on both counts from a year ago.
The systems overhaul involved a software program designed to improve automation, operations and services for customers and vendors around the world, Spierkel said in earlier statements.
Ingram has now done the overhaul in seven countries and has 19 more on tap. The program began three years ago and has an expected companywide completion date of 2014.
The changeover went smoothly in Singa-pore, New Zealand, Chile, the Netherlands, Belgium and Indonesia.
Australia is a bigger market for Ingram Micro, and problems on the overhaul started shortly after the installation of the new software system in February and March. The Australian business had used the same software since Ingram acquired then-Tech Pacific in 2004 for $530 million from private equity firm CVC Asia Pacific Ltd. and Dutch computer distributor Hagemeyer NV.
More Complex
A year earlier, Ingram installed a proprietary warehouse management system in Australia as well, adding complexity to the system’s communications network.
When the company installed the new system, it didn’t communicate with the warehouse system, causing a backlog and other logistical problems internally and for customers.
The company spent most of the second quarter fixing the problem.
Before initially joining Ingram, Monie was the head of Latin American operations at New Jersey-based Honeywell International and Asia-Pacific operations at Allied Signal Inc., where he led the company’s expansion into China and India.
Allied Signal, a maker of aerospace, automotive and engineering products and parts, was acquired by Honeywell in 1999 for $15 billion.
