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Actum Group resilient despite pandemic challenges

23 June 2021 News

The Actum Group is a specialised importer and distributor of industrial and electronic products in South and southern Africa. Its world touches everything from agriculture and telecoms, to pharmaceutical and construction, to mining and oil and gas. Actum Group is fanatically focused on quality and represents only the very best international and local companies and brands.

The company boasts a proud history of building through partnerships, collaborations and acquisitions of world-class companies like Actum Electronics, Dowson & Dobson Industrial, Peter Jones Electronic Equipment, Altico Static Control Solutions and Banding & Identification Solutions Africa. The very best of those teams now all work together and continue to offer leading quality products.

Actum Group was founded 17 years ago when entrepreneurs Greg Barron and Kevin Klaff decided to acquire the Actum Electronics business from George Spurdle. George had founded the business in 1968 and grew it into a supplier of quality electronic components for the next 36 years until his retirement. The new owners immediately saw an opportunity to grow the business by representing and supplying quality branded products into the South African market.

“We realised from the start that there was a big opportunity in building on Actum Electronics’ reputation for supplying quality components from Europe and not looking for cheaper and inferior options from the East,” says Barron. “We decided to maintain the quality aspect as our core strategy in growing the Group through further acquisitions.”

Maintaining this as its core approach, Actum Group continued to grow through various acquisitions of similar companies such as Connecta and Altico Static Control Solutions as well as organic growth by bringing new brands on board such as Schroff, Calmark and KVG. In 2012 the group diversified into the instrumentation market by acquiring Peter Jones Electronic Equipment and in 2015 Actum Industrial was formed with the acquisition of Dowson and Dobson Industrial.

The Actum Group currently operates as three entities: Actum Electronics, Actum Industrial and Banding & Identification Solutions Africa. “To date we have acquired six strong entities, all with excellent quality products and over a hundred years of brand history. We proudly represent over 50 quality brands into the South African and African market,” adds Klaff.

Leading brands represented by the Actum Group include the following:

ERNI connectivity

ERNI is a leading global manufacturer and worldwide supplier of a broad line of interconnects for a variety of industries. ERNI develops and manufactures high-quality connector solutions, cable housings and enclosures and cable assemblies for a broad spectrum of applications and industries. Actum Electronics has been the exclusive local partner to ERNI for over 40 years and continues to support the brand through technical expertise and stockholding.

nVent Schroff

For more than 40 years, nVent Schroff has been a leader in providing reliable protection and solid packaging of electronics. Schroff designs and builds complete packaging solutions, including indoor and outdoor cabinet systems, 19-inch subracks, cases and front panels, as well as power supplies and PCB accessories and retainers. Flagship products include Varistar, EuropacPRO, Enviro racks, AdvancedTCA, CompactPCI and VMEbus.

Laird Performance Materials

Laird Performance Materials enables high-performance electronics by creating innovative protection solutions for components and systems. World-leading technology brands rely on Laird for improved protection, higher performance and reliability, custom structural designs and faster time-to-market.

Laird solves design issues through products such as EMI shielding, suppression, or absorber materials, thermal interface materials, precision metals and integrated, multi-functional solutions. Laird Performance Materials serves automotive, aerospace, medical, computing, data infrastructure, telecom, test and measurement, wearable devices and gaming markets.

Around the world, Laird protects billions of electronic devices from harmful heat, electromagnetic interference, or both, as well as adding to the structural integrity of those devices.

KVG crystals and oscillators

KVG is a German manufacturer of crystals and crystal products since 1946. KVG’s crystal products cover a variety of applications, such as telecommunication nets, mobile systems and electronic measuring technology. These applications demand high precision, longevity and reliable system availability. Products include crystals, crystal oscillators, crystal filters, Taitien Electronics and Accubeat.

Altico Static Control Solutions

Altico provides solutions for all static control challenges, ranging from ESD flooring through to complete ESD audits and installations.

Resilience and future growth

“The business has shown remarkable resilience through the Covid-19 pandemic,” says Klaff. “We are absolutely certain that this is as a result of our diversified product offering and the fact that we are known in the market as a provider of quality products. We are proudly investing in South Africa and continue to look for future acquisitions and other growth opportunities”.

“Quality products and our quality people have always been our differentiator,” concludes Barron. “We look forward to the next exciting phase in our Group’s journey.”


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