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Agilysys Inc., formerly Pioneer-Standard Electronics Inc., hired dealmaker and evaluator Martin Ellis this summer to help the company reposition itself as a distributor and reseller of enterprise computer systems. Ellis comes aboard as EVP of Corporate Development, a newly created position.
Ellis will help the Clevelandbased company morph into a larger enterprise systems distributor by drawing on his experience in his former job as head of corporate finance at consulting firm Stern Stewart.
Agilysys, which began life as a distributor of electronic components, exited that business in March with the sale of its industrial electronics division to Arrow Electronics for about $250 million.
Ellis says that Agilysys preferred the growth prospects of the enterprise computing distribution platform to the components operations because the former business has a "few suppliers/many customers" structure as opposed to the more daunting logistics of running a "multiple supplier/multiple customer" business like the components operation. Agilysys swung its first deal in September, agreeing to buy Kyrus Corp., a provider of retail solutions and services, for $31 million.
Going forward, the company will concentrate on the higher-valueadded service of helping customers implement and integrate their systems by relying on three basic technology providers: IBM, HewlettPackard, and Oracle.
As he eyes deals for the company, Ellis says he will rely on the philosophy he used in evaluating deals at Stern Stewart. "I want to balance the objectives of growing and reorienting the company while making sure our transactions make sense from a value perspective."
As a consultant at Stern Stewart, Ellis says that his role was often to evaluate deals...