Exclusive Group gets private equity backing to continue growth

Exclusive Group has secured the backing and access to funds from a private equity player to help drive the next phase of growth at the distribution firm.

Permira has taken a reported €1.3bn majority stake in the business and given the firm access to substantial funding to support the existing management team led by CEO Oliver Breittmayer.

The channel player has indicated that the funds will be used to expand the services it can offer, give it the bandwidth to sign up more vendors and increase its global footprint.

Exclusive has been delivering impressive financial results and in the last year delivered a 38% increase in sales to €1.75bn. It has also followed a policy of expanding its reach geographically as well as rolling out more services for the channel, with an example being its credit and finance operation.

“This investment both validates and enables our trajectory to become the global specialist VAD for cybersecurity and cloud migration, extending our value-based service offerings and strengthening our global reach,” said Breittmayer.

"This partnership [with Permira] preserves and builds upon the unique business culture and platform that our people have shaped over the last decade, and which holds the key to our continuing success," he added.

The deal should close in the next few months and came about because the venture capitalist firm had been charting the progress of Exclusive.

“The escalating threat landscape and the increasing complexity of underlying infrastructures continues to position cybersecurity as one of the fastest growing and resilient segments of global IT spend. In a market that is characterised by structurally high product velocity, we believe that the role of value-added services and technologies, occupied by Exclusive at the centre of the demand generation channel, will become ever more critical in years ahead," said Michail Zekkos, Partner in the technology team at Permira.