Founded in 1973 in Switzerland and having moved to Manchester (England) in 2016, Distrelec was surviving but not thriving. EBITDA was positive but languishing in the low single digits. When a carve-out was agreed between AURELIUS and Swiss-listed Dätwyler Group in 2019, Distrelec’s sales and marketing were suffering from a lack of data and performance transparency, while the tech stack was underinvested and overloaded.

The agreed carve-out and a subsequent holistic operational transformation involving digitalisation saw profits grow ten-fold at Distrelec. AURELIUS’ three-year stewardship helped the business grow to serve 180,000 customers in 19 countries, with two-thirds of its revenue derived from digital channels. During that time, Distrelec was turned into a leading pan-European multi-channel platform for B2B customers for electronic components.

To achieve this, specialists of AURELIUS Operations Advisory advised on a wholesale digitalisation process which optimised the end-to-end customer experience. Alongside other key measures of assortment, availability, the establishment of a customer-centric sales force and digital order interfaces, this enabled the business to prosper.

On the basis of this transformation, in 2023, Distrelec was sold to RS Group for a consideration of EUR 365m. Today, state-of-the-art IT systems, strong capabilities in e-commerce and business intelligence, and a highly qualified digital team form the backbone of the transformed company.