Sonepar has further strengthened its position in South America by buying out Rexel’s assets in Brazil, Chile and Peru. With 1,400 associates and 88 points of sale, those businesses together have annual sales of €250 million (approximately US$280.1 million).
Confident in Brazil’s future and in Nortel’s business with industrial customers, Sonepar now intends to improve that entity’s profit margins by leveraging synergy with its other Brazilian subsidiaries in a market confronted with short-term troubles.
Sonepar’s entry into two additional countries, Chile and Peru, where the market for electric products is expanding, will likewise help the Group enlarge its footprint further in South America. As a result of this latest acquisition, Sonepar now operates in 43 countries around the world and will be strengthening its market leadership in Brazil.
“Our Group’s expansion policy has the abiding support of our family shareholders, and that is what made it possible for us to achieve this deal, because there won’t be a quick return on investment. A key advantage of our ownership structure is that we can pursue a strategy grounded in a long-term vision that also includes profitability as a requirement, given that we finance our business out of our own resources,” explained Franck Bruel, Sonepar’s CEO.
Founded in 1969, the family-owned Sonepar has a workforce of 40,000 employees in 41 countries through 2,600 branches and sales of €17.2 billion (approximately US$19.29 billion) in 2014.
