Wednesday was a busy day for Almo Corporation and not just because it hosted its one-day E4 AV Tour stop in the Washington D.C. area. The distributor kicked off the day by announcing that it had acquired International Audio Visual Inc. (IAVI), creating the largest privately held professional AV distributor and a $1.2 billion corporation.
Warren Chaiken, Almo Corporation president and CEO, and Sam Taylor, executive VP of Almo Professional A/V, took some time out of E4 to discuss the acquisition.
The acquisition “almost doubles our number of dealers,” Taylor says, adding that the overlap was only about 10 percent. IAVI “brings a whole new set of customers.” The combined companies now have approximately 5,000 active dealer accounts.
In terms of how the merging distributors’ vendor mix will change, Taylor points out that Almo Pro A/V’s approach has been to keep a limited number of vendors. It currently lists 46 vendor partners on its site. IAVI lists 81 brands on its site at press time.
“We try to pick the key, really strong pro A/V vendors,” Taylor says, adding that IAVI has a similar set of vendors but each brings some unique manufacturers into the equation.
“Over the next 60 or 70 days we’ll be working to put together a plan to integrate some of those vendors into the new Almo Pro A/V.”
Chaiken, meanwhile, couldn’t help but reflect on the impact the Almo Pro A/V division has had on Almo Corporation since Taylor came on board and launched it about seven years ago.
Watch Taylor and Chaiken discuss Almo’s acquisition of IAVI with CI editor Tom LeBlanc:
