Steljes administration could leave Nureva distie opening

AV distributor Steljes has gone into administration and as a result Nureva may be on the look out for another distributor.

Steljes made an operating loss in 2015 on lower sales, and its main customer in the AV market, SMART Technologies of Canada, recently announced that it would instead be selling through resellers direct, with Steljes only being involved in some after sales operations.

Steljes has been around for almost 30 years. As well as losing much of its SMART business, its demise has also been linked to lower sales of interactive whiteboards, with customers instead moving to large format interactive flat screens that can be easily integrated with other collaboration systems, including mobile gadgets.

Alix Partners has been appointed as the administration firm to deal with a possible sale of the company, as it continues to trade from its Bagshot, Surrey base and its main showroom in the City at Moorgate.

The Steljes Rentals business is believed to be unaffected by the administration, with the company recently reporting that the business had shown impressive growth in sales and customer numbers.

Meanwhile, in the wake of the administration, Canadian firm Nureva may be looking for a new distributor for the UK and Ireland to push its classroom and collaboration systems, after only appointing Steljes early this year.

With the appointment, Nureva said it wanted to “rapidly introduce” Nureva products to the channel and end users.

At the time of the appointment, Nigel Steljes, executive chairman, said: “Nureva’s products fit with the emerging collaboration needs that we see in many organisations, and we’re confident that they will help our customers transform their innovation and collaboration processes.”

Nancy Knowlton, Nureva’s CEO, said: “We look forward to actively working with the Steljes team and its various channel members to build the market for Nureva’s products throughout the region.”

And since that appointment, Steljes has appointed two “key resellers” as part of its UK network. Rapid Technologies and Smarter Interactive are currently offering the Nureva Span collaboration systems as part of their portfolio of products.

With the sad administration news though, Nureva will no doubt be looking at its options.

@AntonySavvas