Acquisition of Vantage Systems Pty Ltd.

Midwich, a specialist audio visual (“AV”) distributor to the trade market with operations across the UK and Ireland, Continental Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific, is pleased to announce it has signed an agreement to acquire the trade and assets associated with the services business of Vantage Systems Pty Ltd (“Vantage” or “the Company”), an Australian-based, Unified Communications (“UC”) managed services business.

Headquartered in Melbourne, Vantage provides managed services that support customers to maximise the utilisation of their UC systems. After the successful acquisition of Starin Marketing (US), the transaction further strengthens the Group’s commitment to the UC market.

The business will report into Michael Broadbent, Managing Director of the Midwich Group Australian organisation Midwich Australia. Previous shareholder, Mark Buckley (Managing Director) will remain with the business and will help lead the growth of the Group’s UC offering across the APAC region.

Michael Broadbent, the Midwich Australia Managing Director, commented:

“An important focus for Midwich is to develop its product and technology portfolio in ways that answer the changing requirements of the market and add value to our existing and growing customer base.

We want to allay any concerns and be very clear that this particular acquisition does not present any conflict for our Channel partners. We will not be engaging in or pursuing the Vantage Systems’ project business.

The move sees Midwich driving into Unified Collaboration (UC) as a distributor.

Put simply, we can now take our AV offering, combine that with the IT capability of Vantage Systems and deliver the additional benefit of UC to our market via our Channel.

We envisage rolling up the current VCare program into the trade-resalable Midwich Mi Support enhanced warranty, which will create a range of possibilities for the Channel. We see outstanding opportunities for our Partners to enhance their overall offering; to provide greater levels of service and collaboration through IT and to help facilitate “borderless” solutions coupled with global service.

This will bring a world-class follow-the-sun model to our customer support, offering faster resolution times but more significantly, it will fully maximise our availability by bringing our customers the benefit of a true global presence and a positive user experience.”

Mark Buckley, Managing Director of Vantage commented:

“The Vantage team are excited to join the Midwich Group to help capture the next phase of leadership and growth, while driving continued innovation in the UC & AV markets. This marks a huge milestone in Vantage’s history and will help fuel our progression in delivering Cloud and Managed Services as we look to expand into new markets and continue our growth trajectory, building on the Founders Insight since 1995.”