Intcomex comes to America

A report from IDC forecasts lots of growth in the information technology (IT) products market in Latin America and the Caribbean. The market is expected to go from $38.7 billion in 2006 to $60.4 billion in 2010, which is six times the growth in spending from 2000 to 2006. Some drivers include the Internet as well as low-priced PCs.

It's good news for IT distributor Intcomex. And now the company wants to do an IPO on NASDAQ.

The company is a single source of purchasing for roughly 5,700 products from over 220 vendors, such as Epson, Hewlett Packard (NYSE: HPQ), Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), Kingston, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Samsung, Seagate (NYSE: STX) and Western Digital (NYSE: WDC). The geographic footprint includes the United States, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Panama, Guatemala, Peru, Uruguay, El Salvador, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico and Colombia.

Over the past five years, Intcomex's revenues increased from $324.1 million to $889.8 million. During this time, operating income went from $11.2 million to $34.6 million.

A key aspect to the business has been Intcomex's dual distribution strategy. That is, there is in-country distribution facilities as well as a presence in Miami. Basically, it helps to increase margins as well as improve the product mix.

The lead underwriters on the IPO include Citigroup (NYSE: C) and UBS (NYSE: UBS). The proposed ticker symbol is "ICMX."

The prospectus is on the SEC website. Also, if you want to check out more recent IPO filings, click here.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.