Renaissance restructures sales team

Sale of the distribution business in the works with two offers on the table

By Vera Alves, Auckland | Wednesday, 07 March 2012
Renaissance has made four staff redundant from its sales team on the distribution side of the business, as it reviews the company structure and looks at two offers from potential buyers.

According to Doug Casement, the company's general manager for distribution, the redundancies are part of a company restructure and Renaissance is now "in better shape than in the past two years".

Speaking to Reseller News, Casement also adds that "redundancies are not about people, they are about positions". "We may create some new positions but they will require new sets of skills," he adds. "I hate making people redundant, this was not done lightly. It was not just a casual flick of people," says the GM, saying it was a sad but necessary measure to restructure the company to fit within market conditions.

Casement addressed the many rumours that have been coming out in the past few months saying he has had to spend a lot of time assuring employees and business partners that business is still up and running. "I am bored to say this. We are a publicly listed company and, as such, any part of the business is always for sale if someone makes an offer," says Casement.

He confirmed what chairman Colin Giffney had told the NZX last week, that there are currently two potential buyers for the distribution side of the business and Renaissance is now reviewing the offers.

"We received two written proposals. Both parties should provide our distribution employees great opportunities, much greater than we will be able to provide. Both parties should be better able to meet Apple’s future requirements. The proposals are complicated and we are still sorting out exactly what they mean. We have identified a preferred purchaser. Ultimately Apple will make the selection. We are toing and froing with heads of agreement. We will announce more as soon as we are in a position to," says the chairman in its latest Annual General Meeting report, released last week.

Giffney also says being forced into making a disclosure about the distribution business last September was something the company "did not wish to make"."Distribution has been our core. However we said that if we received a proposal at the right price we would entertain sale of that business. That has probably been the worst release we have ever had to make. We have had people approaching us from all angles - and going direct to Apple. With everything else going on in Renaissance this has been disruptive. Two weeks ago we said to the contenders that they should put up or shut up," he adds.