Systemax wins Circuit City's online business at auction

Systemax Inc. won Circuit City's e-commerce business at an auction held this week, subject to court approval.

Last month, multichannel electronics merchant Systemax entered a stalking horse agreement valued at $6.5 million with Circuit City, which began liquidating assets in January after filing for bankruptcy protection in November. A stalking horse agreement is an initial offer for a bankrupt company's assets from an interested buyer chosen by the company.

This week, Systemax reported that a “revised bid” for Circuit City's ecommerce business was selected as the highest or otherwise best bid.

Systemax manufactures and sells consumer electronics via the TigerDirect brand. In January 2008, it acquired the intellectual property of bankrupt CompUSA.

In other news, Systemax reported that consolidated net sales for the first quarter ended March 31 grew 4% for a total of $752.3 million. North American technology product sales grew 21%. In the industrial products category, revenue declined 20%.

“We are price-competitive and that's a necessary ingredient of success in our business,” said Gilbert Fiorentino, chief executive of Systemax's technology products group.

The company is still investing in the bricks-and-mortar side of its business. “We are continuing to remodel our CompUSA stores in the United States with our innovative new retail shopping system, Retail 2.0, to bring the best of the Web to our retail stores,” said Fiorentino. “The results of the Retail 2.0 initiative have been very positive, with improvements in close rate and overall customer satisfaction.”