American distie Arrow Electronics has scooped up smaller Irish-owned rival Altimate Group for €48.1m.

Channel-bestriding behemoth Arrow bought the distributor off Irish financial holding company DCC. Altimate is DCC's Enterprise distribution business and in 2011 reported a yearly operating profit of €3.7m on €257m of global sales.

The buyout is in line with Arrow's stated intentions to expand, following on from a bumper increase in turnover and profits in Q3 2011.

DCC will receive €48.1m for Altimate, (€41m cash consideration and €7m in deferred acquisition consideration obligations) but will have to swallow a €8m writedown on the investment they put in when they bought the firm in 2000.

Altimate has customers in France, the Benelux and Iberia regions and sells a range of data management, security and virtualisation software, servers and storage products which are used in medium-sized and large organisations.

The deal is pending approval from the European Commission.

DCC CEO Tommy Breen told Irish news channel RTE:

"The disposal of Altimate is consistent with our strategy to concentrate the focus of DCC SerCom's distribution activities on its retail and reseller distribution businesses, which have strong leadership positions in Britain, Ireland and France and significant opportunities for further organic and acquisition growth." ®