Brightstar appears ready to renew its commitment to Europe with the purchase of 20:20 Mobile, a leading European distributor of mobile devices. Brightstar has been without a strong presence in Europe since cashing out of Brightstar Europe last year. The company has maintained some European operations, and has said that it will focus on organic growth and strategic acquisitions there.
20:20 offers logistics and distribution services that are very similar to those offered by Brigthstar in the U.S. It provides distribution, supply chain services, reverse logistics and financial services to vendors, operators, MVNOs, retailers, online merchants, dealers, distributors and insurance providers. Currently 20:20 is owned by private equity group Doughty Hanson.
Reports of a Brightstar/20:20 deal first surfaced early this year. A few months later Brightstar founder Marcelo Claure said 20:20 was not a “done deal” and that he was also looking at another company, Data Select. Brightstar almost bought Data Select in 2011, but the deal collapsed.
Meanwhile a new player is entering the device logistics business here in the U.S. Denali Advanced Integration has opened a large mobile device integration center in Texas, not far from AT&T’s world headquarters. Denali is a 21-year-old IT solutions provider started by a group of brothers. The company offers enterprise mobility solutions to its customers, and says customer needs for device management prompted it to build the new integration center.
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Denali, based in Redmond, currently has roughly 30,000 devices under management, according to a report from CRN. CRN says Denali is a $180 million company with 36,000 employees worldwide.
Motorola is one of Denali’s major enterprise mobility partners. Denali’s new facility is about 60 miles from the Fort Worth factory at which Motorola is producing the Moto X, the first smartphone to be made in America.
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