After an initial investment of R5-million, Esquire Technologies has announced the launch of a new stationery and office products distribution company, to be called Casey Distribution. It is believed this will be South Africa’s first fully online stationery distribution store.
Mahomed Cassim, CEO of Esquire Technologies, says Casey Distribution is a “legend reborn” as the name derives from Casey Electronics, a company he and his business partner Asgar Mahomed started from a dining room table to become a JSE Listed-company in 10 years.
Casey Electronics, which listed in 1998, was known for its Casey line of PCs. At the time of listing it was the first black empowered company to list and Asgar Mahomed (29) and Mahomed Cassim (31) were among the youngest company directors noted on the exchange. In early 1999 Mahomed and Cassim sold Casey Electronics to a black empowerment company, Blitech.
Mahomed and Cassim launched Esquire Technologies during the same year. Esquire is now one of the largest non-listed ICT distributors in the country – and currently boasts more than 12 000 resellers across South Africa and neighbouring countries and is it first company in the world to launch a virtual reseller network (VRN) for it resellers.
Nasser Mahomed , MD of Casey Distribution, says he is excited about this new venture as Casey will solely focus on carrying an extensive range of stationery and office equipment and, like Esquire Technologies, would fundamentally service the SMME business market. It will also boast an extensive generic printer cartridge product range.
Casey will also leverage off the infrastructure built by Esquire and will also implement the Improweb system to trade on-line with its resellers. He says that, currently, all 12 000 resellers registered with Esquire will automatically be able to purchase from Casey Distribution immediately – and place orders online on Casey’s website “once we go live very soon”.
Casey Distribution is currently trading from Midrand, with plans to expand to all Esquire branches in future.