Edco acquires West Plains-based competitor Axio

Jim Horton, chief operating officer for the Springfield-based document conversion and storage company, said Edco has made preliminary contact with several other nonlocal competitors, though he wouldn’t disclose further details.

Other acquisitions might not happen soon, though. Edco, 1351 N. Belcrest Ave., and Axio negotiated for several years before agreeing on an undisclosed price in January.

“This industry, like many industries, is consolidating,” said Jay Garnett, one of three former Axio owners. “We found it increasingly difficult to compete with larger competitors like Edco. There were just a lot of similarities between the two companies, and it just was a good fit.”

Axio was founded by Doug Rideout in 1989 as Advanced Records Storage. Garnett became owner nearly a decade later and took on Matt Powell and Terry Oertwig as partners in 2001 and 2002, respectively. The firm became Axio in 2002.

Edco, established in 1961, had 204 employees and about 350 clients before the acquisition, with 90 percent of its business coming from hospitals, according to Horton.

The company has more than 100,000 boxes in storage at SecureStore, its 92,000-square-foot storage facility in Springfield Underground.

“We service basically all the hospitals east of the Rockies, and the majority of them are not here locally,” Horton said. “(Axio brings) more of a local, centralized base of Missouri, Arkansas and Illinois clients that we did not have in the past.”

The acquisition gives Edco another 200 clients, mostly Laserfiche document management clients. Edco didn’t already have Laserfiche service, so this gives it another “tool in the toolbox,” according to Horton.

It also gives Edco on-site scanning abilities at hospitals in the Arkansas cities of Jonesboro, Fayetteville, and Bentonville.

Edco is consolidating most of Axio’s operations to Springfield, though it’s maintaining a support staff of six people in leased office space in West Plains. Axio had 88 employees when it was purchased, and Edco offered jobs in Springfield for the first 15 to 30 people who applied to relocate.

Only two workers took up the company’s offer.

Meanwhile, Axio’s former owners are moving on to other business ventures, including developing hunting technology and real estate development in northwest Arkansas.

Before the Merger

Document storage companies Edco and Axio merged in January. Here’s a breakdown of the two companies.

Edco Group Inc.

Headquarters: Springfield

Year established: 1961

Owner: Bill Glassman, majority owner

Employees: 204

Clients: 350

Main service: Document conversion, storage and destruction

Main software used: Express Image

Axio Technologies Inc.

Headquarters: West Plains

Year established: 1989

Owners: Jay Garnett, Matt Powell and Terry Oertwig

Employees: 88

Clients: 200

Main service: Document conversion and storage

Main software used: Laserfiche[[In-content Ad]]