Rickitt Mitchell, our M&A Worldwide Partner in the United Kingdom, is delighted to have led on the sale of AV Online – a seller of audio-visual equipment, including home cinema systems, Hi-Fi systems and accessories – to online music equipment retailer Gear4Music Ltd.

Online music equipment retailer Gear4music has bought AV Online and its website for £9.2m.

The deal expands Gear4music’s offer into the AV market, where it will compete against high-street retailers including Richer Sounds. 

AV Online sells audio-visual equipment, including home cinema systems, hi-fi systems and accessories, from its base in Bacup, Lancashire. 

It was founded in 2003 by Carl Pickles and now has 21 staff, with the vast majority of its sales coming online from its own websites and Amazon.

York-based Gear4music believes it can “quickly grow” revenues and profits by moving the business onto Gear4music’s highly scalable bespoke e-commerce platform, rebranding the business to AV.com, developing its product ranges, and expanding into Europe.

AV Online already had a big increase in revenues in the year to March, up 54% to £8.6m, with pre-tax profits trebling to £1.2m.

Gear4music’s chief executive Andrew Wass said: “Operating in a £400m UK audio video market that is currently dominated by high-street based retailers, the board believes that AV Online will greatly benefit from being transferred onto the group’s highly scalable European e-commerce platform and being rebranded to ‘AV.com’.”

Gear4music will pay £6.2m for AV Online – which includes £2.5m of inventory and a warehouse valued at £1.3m – and £3.0m in a separate deal for the AV.com domain name, which wasn’t owned by the company.