Strategy in TECH...
In the wake of the recent announcement about the acquisition of Control4 by SnapAV, all executives associated with this deal have not been available to the media…their lips are sealed. But Control4 is a public company – at least until this deal closes and they go private – and a recent filing gives a dramatic, detailed view of how hard the parties worked to make this deal happen, and why Control4 really, really wanted to be acquired.
SnapAV, a leading provider of custom integration brands and products, announced today that it has acquired Volutone, a respected California-based distributor with seven locations throughout California and Nevada. The move expands SnapAV’s local touch points in a key market, a strategy that first emerged with their earlier acquisition of another large regional distributor in March of this year, Chicago’s Allnet Distributing.
SnapAV, the unique national manufacturer/distributor of custom integration products based in North Carolina, announced on Tuesday that it has launched a media over IP solution designed to offer a uncommon combination of tremendous flexibility along with simplicity. Part of their Binary line, this 900 Series Media over IP solution delivers 4K UHD content with HDR support from any number of sources to any number of displays.
SnapAV announced today that it has partnered with lighting kingpin Lutron to offer a special version of their RA2 Select repeater, part of an entire RA2 Select system, that has been natively integrated into SnapAV’s OvrC remote management system. The agreement between the two of them is said to have been taken with the goal of “expanding the market for smart lighting control.”
SnapAV announced today that it has acquired Allnet Distributing, the Chicago-based distribution company owned by Wally Whinna, who years ago sold a distribution company to Ingram Micro as part of their acquisition of AVAD. This makes Whinna a two-time winner, having created two distribution companies and selling them off, likely for a handsome profit – this time to industry powerhouse SnapAV.
SnapAV announced today that General Atlantic, its private equity partner, has sold its ownership interest in the company to San Francisco-based Hellman and Friedman, another private equity group. The move, while unexpected, is not unusual in the world of private equity – especially in the case where a portfolio company transitions stages of growth that move it beyond the the investment strategy of the PE partner as compared to when the investment was initially made.
SnapAV announced today that it has launched a new line of uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) under its WattBox brand that offers OvrC-capability. Combining the UPS with a WattBox IP power conditioner, you gain cloud based remote management capability with both the OvrC and WattBox interfaces.
SnapAV announced Wednesday that it has acquired Autonomic, a leading music server solutions provider. This is SnapAV’s latest in a string of acquisitions, as the company continues to seek solutions that will fulfill the needs of their extensive national network of custom integrators.
Adam Levy, one of the original founding executives of SnapAV in 2006 who left the organization about a year ago “to try some other things,” has rejoined the organization and been appointed President. Levy will be in charge of store operations with day-to-day operational responsibility focused on serving their dealers.
As we walked the halls of CE Week, we kept running into old friends and well-known industry personalities. We met both at once when we ran into Eric Bodley of PPC/Perfect Path who was at the show to support various partners of the company. PPC was recently purchased by cable giant Belden, Inc. and we’ve been anxiously awaiting more details on how this consolidation would be implemented.
Bodley wasn’t in a position to comment on that quite yet, but we took advantage of the meeting to ask him about a couple of other recent issues.
