Avnet has bought Access Distribution from its parent General Electric for $412.5m.

Access has 600 staff worldwide and is expected to bring in some $2bn in revenues this financial year - 90 per cent of this from the US and the rest from Europe. It specialises in security, storage, enterprise applications, and Sun kit.

Avnet chairman and CEO Roy Vallee welcomed the deal as a good strategic fit. He said Access's Sun expertise was a big driver for the takeover. He said the Sun business would be kept in its own business unit - Avnet runs HP and IBM business through separate units. Avnet turns over some $14.25bn in revenue distributing products and specialises in supply chain and logisitic services.

The deal is expected to add to the bottom line in 2007 by about 20 cents a share.

The full press release is here.

The deal is subject to the usual regulator approval but should close before the end of the year. ®