WhiteGold bought by billion-dollar French distributor

A billion-dollar global distributor has pounced on Australia's WhiteGold Solutions.

The acquisition is Paris-headquartered Exclusive Networks' first buyout outside Europe, the Middle East and Africa and part of its ambition to grow to €1 billion by 2017.

Speaking to CRN this morning as the news broke, WhiteGold managing director Dominic Whitehand said the three founding directors were "very, very happy" with the transaction, though would not reveal the value of the deal.

The three founders, Dominic, his wife Sharon and sales director Jonathan Odria, each retain 10 percent stakes in the business, while Exclusive Networks takes the other 70 percent.

"We are now part of a company in 22 countries currently turning over AU$1 billion, and looking to get to €1 billion by 2017."

The are no job cuts expected, according to a company statement. "We intend to invest in the business for future national and regional expansion, which will mean positive net recruitment, especially in customer facing and support roles.

"In fact, WhiteGold has nine open roles that are to be filled in the next six weeks in sales, product management, customer service, order administration, warehouse and junior systems management."

Exclusive Networks chief executive Olivier Breittmayer said: "WhiteGold Solutions is a very successful and well-managed business growing at around 60 percent each year and ideally placed to become our gateway for expanding operations throughout the wider region.  

"Its business is grounded in a remarkably familiar business philosophy, echoing many of the approaches to marketing and technical support that form our blueprint for true value-added distribution for disruptive technology vendors.

Whitehand told CRN that the companies were great fits, with 11 crossover vendors, including Fortinet, Nutanix, A10, LogRhythm, Arbor Networks and FireEye.

The acquisition will help Whitegold expand in the region as well as add innovative products from its new owner, such as Exclusive Networks Passports Services, which Whitehand explained as "single product code that a reseller or end user can buy and it gives them 24/7 onsite support across multiple vendors.

"Instead of buying multiple contract, they can buy one Passport SKU that covers them for seven vendors," he added.