Navarre Corp. said it has signed a letter of intent to acquire the Hawaii business and the transaction is expected to close next month. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Stuart Marlowe, founder and president of the Hawaii business, will stay on as general manager of Hawaii operations as the rest of the Record Service/Surfside management team will stay in place, said Eric Paulson, Navarre's chairman and chief executive officer.
Record Service was founded in 1980, according to state business registration records.
Navarre had sales of $119.5 million and a profit of $1.6 million for the year ended March 31 1995, the last full fiscal year it reported. The company's stock trades on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the symbol NAVR.
Paulson today declined to disclose the sales figures for the Hawaii business and said he would not comment beyond what was said in a news release. Officials of Record Service and Surfside were not available for comment early today.
In the release, Paulson described Record Service and Surfside combined as Hawaii's leading distributor of prerecorded music and the exclusive distributor in the islands of BMG and CEMA records and entertainment products.
He said the Hawaii acquisition will give Navarre virtually complete U.S. coverage and provide a base for Pacific Rim expansion.
In the press release, Marlowe said the tie-in with Navarre gives the Hawaii company access to an expanded range of music, software and CD-ROM products, including artists Navarre represents exclusively.