French company Legrand has bought the parent company of European data center manufacturer Minkels in a move designed to extend its reach in the data center market.

Legrand focuses on electrical and digital building infrastructures and already has a footprint in the data center sector offering transformers, circuit breakers, measurement and monitoring and uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems and capacitor banks.

Its purchase of Minkel’s parent company Aegide, based in the Netherlands but with a strong presence in the Belgium, Swiss and French markets, will add data center racks and cabinets to its portfolio.  

Minkels itself focuses on data center and server room solutions with data center housing, cooling, monitoring and power distribution products.

Legrand’s takeover of Aegide Group also includes electronic enclosures manufacturer Cortexon and other companies Vaultex and dcs.

Aegide Group CEO Gery Morssinkhof handed over his position to the former Chief Commercial Officer Jeroen Hol as a result of the sale but the rest of the Aegide management team will remain the same.

“Legrand is already very active in the data center market, worldwide through its different product lines and brands,” Hol said.

“Aegide and Legrand will work together to offer the data center market a more complete package. As such, this association will increase both companies’ ability to offer complete integrate, energy efficient and secure solutions for mission critical data center operations.”

Legrand has a presence in 180 countries and in 2011 it had sales of 425bn euro.

Legrand Nederland managing director Irving van Nes said he believes the Minkels range is complementary to Legrand in the areas of cable management, modular UPS, busbars, security systems, switchgears and datacom connectivity.

Aegide had sales of 36m euro in 2011 and has 170 employees.