ASBIS Group Establishes Presence in Bosnia and Herzegovina through Acquisition of Local Distributor

The Board of Directors of ASBISc Enterprises Plc, the head company of ASBIS Group, has informed that on 15 April 2008 the company concluded a contract for the acquisition of 80% of the share capital of MEGATREND d.o.o. Sarajevo, a distributor of IT products and components in Bosnia and Herzegovina.



Under the agreement, ASBISc Enterprises Plc is granted the option to acquire another 10% of the share capital of MEGATREND d.o.o. Sarajevo, exercisable within a period of two years after the acquisition date. The remaining 10% of the share capital will be distributed among key employees of MEGATREND d.o.o. Sarajevo.



Alan Mitrović, ASBIS Group’s Vice President for South-Eastern Europe, stated: “Until now we did not have direct operations in Bosnia & Herzegovina, though we did sell to local resellers through our neighbouring offices. The market is still quite small, fragmented, business terms are unclear, retail market is very small and most of sales are corporate. However, we are absolutely positive that this market will grow in the next years to about 100,000 computers in 2010.”



He continued, “We are very glad that we now have a well-established office in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and we already plan to have sales of about 20 million US dollars in 2009. We do not plan to have offices in Montenegro and Albania in 2008, but we intend to serve resellers from these countries with Field Sales Managers linked to supply from neighbouring ASBIS offices.”



MEGATREND d.o.o. Sarajevo is an established distributor having a history of more than 10 years of operations in the market of Bosnia and Herzegovina, distributing products of such brands as HP, IBM, LENOVO, APPLE, MGE, 3COM, ZyXEL, PHILIPS, TOSHIBA and DRAPER. This acquisition gives ASBISc Enterprises Plc instant access to a new market with an existing infrastructure and customer base, as well as welcomes new vendors in its current portfolio.



Admir Bajramović, Sales Director, Megatrend d.o.o. Sarajevo, commented, “Being aware of the needs of our partners to efficiently and effectively manage their businesses, we wish to reaffirm Megatrend's commitment to improving and advancing our business activities. Membership in the ASBIS Group shall enable us to even better respond to the requirements of the growing IT market in BiH, expand our range of products and meet the requirements of our customers.”



The customers in Bosnia and Herzegovina on their side will benefit from increased selection of products and services available from ASBIS such as Intel, Seagate, AMD, Hitachi GST, Samsung, Kingston, Transcend, Pioneer, Canyon, Prestigio, Sony-NEC-Optiarc, Lite-On, Toshiba notebooks, Dell, Silverstone, Sapphire, Gainward, Asrock and other.