ALSO continues expansion and development of service business

ALSO Group (SIX: ALSN) is pressing ahead with its expansion strategy and developing its service business. The next step in this strategy is complete: ALSO Group has acquired a further stake of 70% in Bachmann Mobile Kommunikation AG, Stans, Switzerland. ALSO’s medium-term goal is to increase the portion of total net sales attributable to its service business from 3 percent to 6 percent through inorganic and organic growth. Bachmann is Switzerland’s leading provider of repair and logistics services in the consumer electronics and mobile communications after-sales service market.

ALSO originally acquired a 30 percent stake in Bachmann in 2014. This marked the beginning of a fruitful relationship for the two firms in the after-sales service market, providing services to telecommunications firms, manufacturers and resellers. ALSO and Bachmann handle a wide range of services in the area of reverse logistics for a number of major customers such as Swisscom, Sunrise, Salt and Schweizerische Post, including cost calculation, handling, customer hotline and overnight transportation.

“ALSO is pressing ahead with its expansion strategy,” said Gustavo Möller-Hergt, CEO of ALSO. “As a B2B marketplace, we intend to offer our customers end-to-end solutions and systematically enhance our high-margin range of products and services. Together with Bachmann, we have been able to offer genuine added value over the past two years thanks to our combined expertise and seamless processes. We have been hugely impressed with the quality and professionalism with which Bachmann operates. And so the inclusion of Bachmann in the ALSO Group and the internationalisation of know-how was a logical step for us.”

During the last years Bachmann achieved continuous growth of sales to around 30 million CHF to date. Logistics services will be gradually integrated with the ALSO site in Emmen over the coming months to ensure that processes such as return deliveries are coordinated even more efficiently. Bachmann’s sales site and the company headquarters in Stans will remain in place.