Datrontech calls in the receivers

Datrontech, the venerable British distie, has called in the receivers, following "discussions with the company's principal' bank. In other words it is insolvent.

Presumably, there are some franchises in the wreckage that other disties will want. But at what price? The vendors will have representation refusal rights in any change of ownership.

Once upon a time, Datrontech was the UK's biggest and most profitable memory distie, mainly by holding an exclusive franchise for Kingston memory. In the early 90s, the company broadened its horizons into the system builder market, scoring OEM franchises for Intel and Microsoft. The company came to the stock market in 1995 on the back of booming memory prices - and promptly bought up Kingston memory disties overseas and networking and storage distribution companies in the UK.

The expansion was, ultimately, disastrous - the company paid too much for its acquisitions, and its management proved entirely unable to integrate the purchases. ®