Westcon-Comstor owner Synnex has delayed its global Concentrix spin-off because of the ongoing pandemic. Synnex was planning to complete the partition before June this year, but this has now been delayed indefinitely. Synnex announced the spin-off at the beginning of the year, designed to allow the company and its subsidiaries to concentrate on traditional IT distribution and services, and leave Concentrix to focus on providing services around customer experience and engagement in key verticals like travel and transport, utilities, banking, insurance, automotive and retail.
However, a number of those sectors have now been hit by the virus and Synnex is concerned that going for a separation now will hit Concentrix's value. Synnex president and CEO Dennis Polk (pictured) said: "The reality at this point is that we can’t bring this business to the market as an independent company when the focus will be on the virus pandemic, response and recovery.
"We will bring Concentrix to the market when the focus will be back on the strategies and prospects of the business."
Concentrix recorded annual revenue of about $4.7bn in fiscal year 2020. For the first fiscal quarter this year - which ended 29 February - Concentrix had pretty stagnant revenue of $1.189bn, up just over 1% from the $1.173bn reported for the same quarter last year.
Concentrix has 230,000 staff worldwide, of which over 150,000 are living in restricted movement areas. And around 70,000 of those are unable to currently work at all, which is somewhat ironic considering that one of Concentrix's business planks is services offered around home working at firms. The travel and transportation sector represents around $300m of Concentrix's business.
