In the completion of a process underway since February, Ingram Micro Inc. has been officially acquired by Tianjin Tianhai Investment Company Ltd., a logistics services provider and subsidiary of conglomerate HNA Group, in a transaction valued at approximately $6 billion.
In a message to employees circulated this morning, CEO Alain Monié stated that the distributor will continue to operate as a standalone company headquartered in Irvine, Calif. What changes, Monié said, is that Ingram Micro now has the financial backing of a bigger global company with some $90 billion in assets.
“Not only does this partnership provide us the added flexibility and resources to further innovate and accelerate Ingram Micro’s growth potential, it also increases our ability to invest more in adding new capabilities and businesses,” Monié wrote. “Our vendor and customer partners will benefit from our ability to increase investment, as well as from expanded access to emerging markets, all of which will further our collective business objectives.”
Monié will remain in his current post, but be joined by two new senior executives. Effective December 16, Gina Mastantuono (pictured), who is currently executive vice president of finance, will become CFO, and Augusto Aragone, now vice president and associate general counsel for corporate and M&A matters, will be executive vice president, secretary, and general counsel.
Mastantuono, who will be Ingram Micro’s first female C-level manager, replaces William Humes, who has been named to Ingram Micro’s new board of directors. Aragone succeeds Larry Boyd, who will also assume a board post.
Other board members include Monié, HNA Group vice chairman and CEO Adam Tan, who will serve as board chair, former Ingram Micro board chair Dale Laurance, Bharat Bhise, president and CEO of Bravia Capital, and Jim McGovern, former under secretary and acting secretary of the United States Air Force.
“With its well-established supply chain management expertise and broad portfolio of easy-to-use technology solutions, Ingram Micro exemplifies HNA Group’s strategy of investing in companies with strong positions in growing markets in our core areas of focus,” Tan said today in a press statement. “Working together, we believe there are significant opportunities to continue to expand Ingram Micro’s delivery platform and portfolio of solutions offerings into high growth regions and provide customers across a wide range of industries with greater access to new market opportunities. Today marks a significant step forward in HNA Group’s efforts to create a global, one-stop provider of logistics and supply chain solutions and services.”
As ChannelPro reported last week, those efforts are likely to include strategic acquisitions of businesses with experience in promising markets requiring specialized knowledge that many solution providers lack.
“That’s part of our strategy, to make sure that we continue to give skill sets to our solution providers and additional capabilities to be able to go deliver,” said Paul Bay, Ingram Micro’s executive vice president and president for the Americas. Bay pointed to the company’s purchase this March of NETXUSA Inc., a valued-added distributor in Greenville, S.C. with expertise in unified communication and collaboration, as a representative example.
“We will continue to look at areas that we’ll make investments in on a go-forward basis to help fill the gaps that the solution providers have today,” he said.
In his letter to employees this morning, Monié re-affirmed statements Bay made last week at a partner event in Las Vegas that resellers can expect continuity in their relationship with Ingram Micro.
“As promised in February when we first announced our intent to join the HNA Group, it has been business as usual during this transition, and this does not change,” Monié wrote. “Our strategic initiatives and our commitment to optimizing our partners’ businesses by delivering best-in-class service and solutions across the globe also do not change.”
Ingram Micro’s long-pending acquisition cleared its final regulatory hurdle last month when it won approval from the federal government’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. That board is responsible for reviewing overseas acquisitions of U.S. companies with potential national security implications.
In connection with today’s milestone, Ingram Micro’s stock was de-listed from the New York Stock Exchange this morning before markets opened.
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