Online music equipment retailer Gear4music has bought AV Online and its website for £9.2m. The deal takes Gear4music’s offer into the AV market, where it will compete against high-street retailers like Richer Sounds.
AV Online sells audio-visual equipment, including home cinema systems, hifi systems and accessories. It was founded in 2003 and now has 21 staff, with the vast majority of its sales coming online from its own websites and Amazon. It achieved £8.4m in revenue for the year to March, an increase of 54 per cent year on year, with pre-tax profits of £1.2m.
Gear4music’s chief executive Andrew Wass said: “Operating in a £400m UK audio video market that is currently dominated by high-street based retailers, the board believes that AV Online will greatly benefit from being transferred onto the group’s highly scalable European eCommerce platform and being rebranded to ‘AV.com’.”
Gear4music will pay £6.2m for AV Online – which includes £2.5m of inventory and a warehouse valued at £1.3m. It is paying an additional £3.0m in a separate deal for the AV.com domain name, which wasn’t owned by the company. This will be funded from Gear4music’s £35m revolving credit facility with HSBC.
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