Ingram Micro D Buys Belgian Software Firm to Gain Base in Europe

Intent on becoming a big player in the fast-growing European computer market, Ingram Micro D has acquired a Belgian software distributor for an undisclosed sum.

Chairman Linwood A. (Chip) Lacy said the company’s purchase of Brussels-based Softeurop will serve as “the critical base in our European expansion strategy.”

Ingram Micro D, based in Santa Ana, is the leading wholesaler of personal computer products in the United States. Softeurop is a leading distributor of American-made software products in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

Softeurop, to be renamed Ingram Softeurop, will be owned primarily by Ingram Micro D. However, the Belgian firm’s current management will retain a small ownership in the company, said Mark R. Briggs, Ingram’s chief financial officer.

Briggs said Ingram Micro D, the company formed in April by Nashville-based Ingram Industries’ acquisition of Micro D of Santa Ana, has had only modest sales in Europe up to now.

“We intend to become a major player in the European market in the next several years,” Briggs said. “The European market is growing very fast, and the penetration of personal computers (into homes and offices) is less than in the United States.”

Briggs described the European market as “very fragmented,” with distributors concentrating on particular countries and not the continent as a whole.

“There’s really no one handling European distribution in a country-to-country way,” he said. “We think the reduction of trade barriers in Europe in 1992 provides untapped potential.”

Ingram’s Lacy said the company has been evaluating the European marketplace “for some time . . . looking for just the right solid, successful company with which to join forces.”

He said Softeurop made an attractive acquisition because it has “a history of success, strong management, an aggressive strategy to expand . . . and an organization that executes smoothly.”

Softeurop, founded in 1983, is the leading distributor of software manufactured by Microsoft, Lotus Development and Ashton-Tate in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The company also has a subsidiary in France.

“By 1995, we expect Ingram Softeurop to be the major, full-assortment distributor of microcomputer products throughout Europe,” Lacy said.