Out of the blue sea, Tianjin Tianhai from China announced it will buy Ingram-Micro, the world's largest technology distributor for $6 billion.

$6 billion for a $46 billion company tells you a lot about the business of high tech distribution. But this story is not about the HOW MUCH but more about the WHO and the WHY.

Tianjin Tianhai began as a humble marine shipping company and turned itself into a modern logistic industry investor and operator, focusing on investment in logistics, supply chain and management-- and financing service for the logistic industry.

Ingram expands further into Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) with the acquisition of the CEE division of fellow value-added enterprise IT distributor RRC Group.

The RRC CEE division brings Ingram a Polish HQ and operations in Poland, Hungary, Serbia, Romania, Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and Albania. It has a product portfolio covering networking, security, infrastructure and auto identification products from Cisco, IBM, Zebra and Avaya, as well as a service offerings suite complete with logistics, education and technical, and marketing support.

The ALSO Group continues growing on fiscal 2015, with profits growing by 10.9% to €90.8 million. Sales for the year are also on the up, reaching €7.8 billion with 7.7% growth.

Overall profit totals €62.9m, a 3.3% increase.

"For the 5th time in a row, the ALSO team has achieved a record result," CEO Gustavo Möller-Hergt remarks.

Ingram Micro expands further into Europe as it buys the e-commerce service business of Netherlands-based orders fulfilment, returns logistics and online payment services provider Docdata for $175 million.

The acquisition covers two e-commerce fulfillment businesses-- Docdata Nederland B.V. and Docdata International B.V. According to Ingram Micro Docdata handles between 125000 and 250000 orders on a daily basis, with major operations in Germany, Netherlands and the UK. It is expected to contribute over $150m in annual services revenue to the new owner.

The ALSO Group expands into a 13th European country as it acquires Polish distributor PC Factory for an undisclosed sum.

PC Factory works with a number of tier-one vendors, including Acer, Sony, Lenovo, Microsoft, Intel and HP. It has been active since 2001 and reports 2014 revenues worth €400 million.

The acquisition covers the PC Factory customer base and manufacturer franchises, as well as renaming to "ALSO Polska." It is subject to certain conditions, including "approval by responsible cartel authorities."

Systemax EMEA Technology Group sales drop by -15.6% Y-o-Y to $272.6 million during Q1 2015, with  losses reaching $26.8m (compared to $3m on Q1 2014) as the company faces problems in its German and UK businesses.

"In Germany, the losses we have incurred over the past years have resulted in recording a one-time non-cash impairment of $0.3m in the first quarter," Systemax CFO Larry Reinhold says during the company earnings call. "Our results in Germany have been poor for a number of years and we are considering all options for improving this business."

Tech Data extends its distribution agreement with Logitech to bring the latter's PC and tablet peripherals to resellers in more European countries, specifically Germany, Austria, Poland and Czech Republic.

The distie already covers Logitech products in the UK, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway and Switzerland.

The ALSO Group reports fiscal 2014 reaches record results, with sales growing by 10.8% to €7.2 billion euros and group net profits worth €60.9 million, a 21.6% improvement over the previous year.

On a geographical basis the distributor sees C. European sales growing by 12.5% to €5.709bn, while N./E. European sales reach 1.7bn with 3.8% growth.