Infotronics founder Phil Lancaster is setting up a new distribution business to fill the void left in the market after Infotronics was placed in liquidation.
Infotronics, which was operating as a wholly-owned subsidiary of S Central, was placed in liquidation last week by S Central CEO Peter Mavridis after he sold the assets of S Central to Brennan IT.
Mavridis had told CRN that the distributor only employed four staff, earned revenues of $2 million and was struggling to compete with the likes of Ingram Micro and iTX.
But Lancaster, who left the company at the end of July, expressed his disappointment with this final chapter in Infotronics' history. He said this version of Infotronics' history was a "slap in the face" to Infotronics staff, which had worked under "enormous pressure" to keep the business running while Mavridis addressed the financial issues hampering S Central.
Lancaster has decided to build a new distribution business after being flooded with calls from vendors and customers that are equally disappointed with Infotronics' demise.
"I have vendors approaching me to pick up the pieces," he said. "I am well down the track of setting up a new business."
Lancaster has four vendors close to signing deals, none of which can yet be named.
Lancaster said the Infotronics business had been "far healthier" than Mavridis represented and was in line to earn "significantly more than double" the two million dollar figure Mavridis quoted.
"In the first quarter of this year, the run rate was far better than the year prior," he said. "In September, if [Infotronics] could have filled the orders it had in hand, it would have been the biggest month it had ever had."
He said Infotronics employed eight staff, two of whom were shared with the S Central business and another two were completing their notice period after resigning.
He also refuted assertions that Infotronics ever competed with Ingram Micro and iTX, as cited by Mavridis.
"We were in a completely different space to them," he said. "We were a niche distributor that made very solid margins and worked with high levels of customer service. And it was working. We had constant congratulations on providing a great service and a strong bottom line."
Lancaster said the "only comforting thing" to come from the S Central saga was that all but one former Infotronics staffer had found work - a reflection, he said, of the esteem with which Infotronics was held in the industry.
"I don't regret selling the business [to S Central], I just regret how it's all turned out," he said. "This is not the way we would obviously have hoped" it would.
Lancaster can be contacted here.
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