Dustin gets sold to Altor

Dustin, a Stockholm, Sweden-based company that acts as an Internet-based distributor of IT products and home electronics, announced that private equity company Altor is to acquire 80 percent of the shares.

The remaining portion of Dustin will be retained by the founders and the current owners.

Dustin was formed in Stockholm in 1984 and its sales for the most recent financial year (September 2004 – August 2005) totaled SEK 2.2 billion. When Internet sales of computer equipments commenced ten years ago, the company had annual sales of SEK 200 M. Dustin specializes in supplying a broad range of computer equipments, primarily to businesses. The number of products totals slightly more than 65,000.

Through Altor as its new principal owner, Dustin will have a strong partner with financial resources and extensive expertise in developing the customer offering and accelerating growth, both organically and through acquisition, says Andréas Ståhl, CEO of Dustin AB.

In Sweden, sales of computer equipments on the Internet amount to slightly more than 5 percent of the total market. However, there is strong development in the growth of trade on the Internet and this has increased significantly faster than the rest of the market in recent years.

Altor has been operating for three years and specializes in acquiring complete or majority shareholdings in medium-size companies in the Nordic region. Similar to Dustin, many of these companies were formerly family-owned. Other examples of family-owned companies acquired by Altor are Byggmax, Piab and Nimbus Boats.

- Our investment strategy is to capitalize on opportunities in terms of growth and consolidation in various industries. Consequently, we look for companies that can form the hub of something much larger. Dustin is definitely such a company, says Harald Mix.

The offer to Dustin’s shareholders is conditional upon the approval of the transaction by the competition authorities.