Redington to offer financial assistance to channels

NR Sethuraman

Chennai: Redington (India) announced its acquisition of a non-banking

financial company to facilitate financial support for its channel. With that,

financial constraints faced by the channel community are set to get improve.

"We have acquired a Delhi-based finance company called Easyaccess for

leveraging the finance capabilities of our channel partners," claimed, SV

Krishnan, CFO, Redington India. The venture is considered to be the first of its

kind by a distributor for its channel. Speaking more about this unique scheme

Krishnan said, "The channels were in need of strong financial support. The

micro finance scheme is a buffer to a certain level, and this kind of financial

solution would benefit channel partners in a big way." He further felt that

the move would give partners more confidence while doing business.

Said Krishnan, "We were contemplating getting into this non-banking

finance business for a long time keeping in mind the welfare of our 13,000

partners. There was no organized player in the channel finance segment except

for a few banks, which were also only providing partial help. So we took up the

offer and closed the deal for a good amount."

The distributor also took this as an opportunity to provide value-added

services to its partner. "We have known our channel for quite a long time

and this would provide a good opportunity for Redington to show some way out for

the partners, besides acting as an inflection point for the potential

improvement," Krishnan asserted. He added that the finance venture would

work towards preventing players from shying out of the business. Without being

in Redington's lap, Easyaccess would act as a separate entity, and provide

financial assistance to the channel, and Redington would invest an amount close

to Rs 80 crore for this purpose. "From the inception of operations in Jan

2008, we have proposed disbursals for a few thousand crore rupees for financing

the channels," Krishnan informed.

He also said that this venture would boost the sales for Redington, besides

helping the channel to grow. "This would create an increased bondage

between the channels and us and people would see more such positive plans in the

future," Krishnan informed. This would set an example for other

distributors and they too can look at providing similar kinds of value-added

services to their partners," Krishnana felt.