A North East storage firm has been bought by a German company specialising in businesses that sell through the Amazon website.
Durham鈥檚 GNOC group has sold its storage and shelving business G-Rack Holdings to Berlin-based Razor, a private equity-backed firm specialising in the acquisition and development of Amazon FBA (fulfillment by Amazon) businesses.
GNOC, which is based at Belmont in Durham, was established in 2015 and has a wide range of operations, including home and garden products, pet supplies and nutrition products.
Read more: North misses out on fund for high-growth companies
The sale - which reflects a growing trend of 鈥楢mazon entrepreneurs鈥 developing and selling e-commerce platforms to serial acquirers - will allow GNOC to expand its business into new areas and continue its growth trajectory.
Razor Group was founded in 2020 and has raised over $450m in the last 10 months, welcoming G-Rack as its latest portfolio addition.
Jonas Diezun, co-founder and CCO of Razor Group, said: 鈥淲e are delighted to welcome the 海角视频 e-commerce leader in racking & shelving to the Razor family. It was a pleasure to work with Graeme and the GNOC team throughout the transaction process.
鈥淲e especially enjoyed the face-to-face meeting at the G-Rack warehouse during the acquisition, the excellent due diligence and the great integration process. We now look forward to pursuing our business plan together with the GNOC team to further develop G-Rack in the upcoming years.鈥
The Newcastle office of law firm Womble Bond Dickinson (WBD) advised on the deal.
Simon Watts, corporate partner at WBD, said: 鈥淚t has been a pleasure working with the GNOC team, another highly successful North East business, on this exciting transaction. The sale of G-Rack will support our client鈥檚 ambitious growth plans and we look forward to working with them again soon.
鈥淕raeme and the GNOC team have managed to grow the G-Rack brand significantly over the past few years and they join an ever increasing number of companies started on Amazon sales platforms, which have subsequently grown into their own standalone businesses.
鈥淭here is estimated to be over 60 companies incorporated in the last three years with the specific purpose of acquiring Amazon-based businesses and our Newcastle-based corporate team has the right technical and expertise to support such companies through their acquisitions.鈥
WBD鈥檚 team was led by partners Simon Watts and Jeremy Smith, managing associate Stacey Hall and associate David Ridley. GNOC was also advised on its pre-sale de-merger by Andrew Little from Begbies Traynor and Mark Brunton from Tait Walker.
Graeme Gilpin, founder and CEO of GNOC, said: 鈥淭his was a complex transaction but WBD worked incredibly hard to make it a success, guiding us through to completion with great leadership, expertise and pragmatism.
"Having such a personable, diligent team with deep sector expertise and other specialist support on hand at all times was invaluable.鈥
