Latest from Mergers & Acquisitions

Photo 226496518 / Mohd Izzuan Ros / Dreamstime
Photo 226496518 / Mohd Izzuan Ros / Dreamstime
Photo 226496518 / Mohd Izzuan Ros / Dreamstime
Photo 226496518 / Mohd Izzuan Ros / Dreamstime
Photo 226496518 /Mohd Izzuan Ros / Dreamstime
Photo 226496518 / Mohd Izuan Ros / Dreamstime
Photo_226496518 Mohd Izzuan / Ros /Dreamstime

News of the Electrical Industry

March 1, 2003
Cooper Industries to Buy Eagle Electric: Cooper Industries, Inc., Houston, Texas, will acquire Eagle Electric, a privately held company with 1999 revenues

Cooper Industries to Buy Eagle Electric: Cooper Industries, Inc., Houston, Texas, will acquire Eagle Electric, a privately held company with 1999 revenues of approximately $187 million.

Eagle's products include switches, receptacles, plugs and connectors, cords and other electrical accessories. Completion of the sale, which is expected early in the second quarter of 2000, is subject to normal government approval and certain other customary closing conditions.

Eagle, headquartered in Long Island City, N.Y., employs approximately 2,000 people in the company's three manufacturing facilities located in New York, South Carolina and Toronto, Canada.

CED buys Dauphin Associates: Consolidated Electrical Distributors, Inc., Westlake, Calif., has completed its acquisition of Dauphin Associates Inc., Harrisburg, Pa. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Dauphin Associates' management will remain the same. Other details of the sale were not forthcoming. The move into Pennsylvania through this acquisition is thought to be one of CED's first ventures into the mid-Atlantic region. The company does have a location in Pennsauken, N.J.

Started in 1901, the six-location Dauphin Electric had estimated sales of $50 million in 1998 and was ranked #107 on Electrical Wholesaling's 250 Biggest listing. CED is ranked the third largest electrical distributor in the U.S., according to EW's 250 Biggest listing.

Amazon jumps into electrical market: Amazon.com has launched a home improvement division. The online company has teamed up with Sprint PCS and Palm Computing to offer electrical and lighting products through wireless e-commerce.

Professional contractors can order products with their Sprint PCS phones or Palm VII organizers. Amazon.com will then ship the products anywhere in the country for a flat fee of $4.95.

"Contractors are professionals who know exactly what product they want to buy and have a lot of constraints on the job site," said Eric Broussard, director of Amazon.com's home improvement division. "Very often having the product delivered directly to the job site is very valuable to these contractors."

Amazon.com, the Internet's largest provider of books, music and videos, launched the home improvement division Nov. 9 after partnering with Tool Crib of the North, a tool and equipment catalog company.

"Our strategy is to be very exhaustive from a selection standpoint," Broussard said. "What has made Amazon.com successful is to offer a very deep product line. We want to do the same in home improvement and become the best place for people to find products."

Roden buys two distributors: Roden Electrical Supply, Knoxville, Tenn., has acquired GW Supply, Chattanooga, Tenn., and Morristown Electric, Morristown, Tenn. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The acquisition of GW Supply gives Roden Electrical Supply access to the contractor market in Chattanooga while the purchase of Morristown Electric expands Roden Electrical Supply's Area of Primary Responsibility (APR) for Allen-Bradley Co., a division of Rockwell Automation.

Former GW management personnel John Williams Jr. and David Powell will continue with Roden. Former Morristown owners G.W. Norton and Johnny Arnwine will continue through the first quarter of 2000 as consultants. Roden has merged GW Supply's Chattanooga operation with its existing location in Chattanooga. The new operation will be called Roden/GW.

Equity adds nine new members: With the addition of the following nine new members, Equity Electrical Associates, Inc., East Walpole, Mass., now has 189 distributor members with 300 locations.

The new members are Biggs Electrical Supply, Chico, Calif.; Brown & Powell Electric Supply, Pittsburgh, Pa.; Lafayette Electric of Lafayette, Inc., Lafayette, La.; Lafayette Electric of Morgan City, Inc., Morgan City, La.; Presco Electric, Scottsdale, Ariz.; Service Electrical Supply Co., Inc., Pittsburgh, Pa.; Top Shelf Lighting Supply, Itasca, Ill.; Tri County Electrical Supply, Fort Collins, Colo.; and West Electric Distributors, Inc., Missoula, Mont.

Black Box to buy datacom installers: Black Box Corp. picked up the pace in its acquisition hunt and has signed five deals by expanding into the Cincinnati, Ohio; Dallas, Texas; Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pa.; and St. Louis, Mo., markets. The acquisitions willhelp propel the company toward its goal of $400 million in sales by March 2001, said Fred Young, CEO of the Pittsburgh, Pa.-based Black Box.

In one of its largest acquisitions to date, Black Box signed a letter of intent to purchase The Delaney Companies, Philadelphia, Pa. Established in 1985 and grossing sales of about $28 million, Delaney provides design, installation and maintenance services in the Philadelphia metropolitan area and mid-Atlantic region. Annual revenues of Delaney are about $28 million.

Black Box moved into the Dallas market when it signed a letter of intent to buy Jet Line Communications, Inc. Established in 1986 in Dallas, Jet Line provides design, installation and maintenance services in the Dallas area. Annual revenues are about $6 million.

The company also moved into St. Louis with the acquisition of K&A Communications, Inc., a 14-year-old firm with about $4 million in sales that provides technical design, installation and maintenance services for premise cabling and related products throughout the greater St. Louis region.

Black Box previously merged with R&D Services, Inc., Westborough, Mass., and Structured Network Solutions, Inc., Cincinnati. R&D, a 26-year-old privately held company with annual revenues of about $5 million, provides technical design, installation and maintenance services for premise cabling and related products to customers throughout the greater Boston region. Structured Network Solutions (SNS), with annual revenues of about $2 million, provides technical design, installation and maintenance services for premise cabling and related network products for customers in the Cincinnati metropolitan area.

GE Supply opens new branches: GE Supply, Shelton, Conn., has opened a branch in Carrollton, Texas, in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex market and in Pasadena, Texas, near Houston's "Ship Channel" area. The Carrollton facility features a new counter sales area and inventory dedicated to day-to-day job site needs and service contracts. It will also offer e-commerce application training, bar coding solutions, EDI and Internet ordering services. Christopher T. Cappo is branch manager. The Pasadena facility will stock products from GE and more than 200 other major manufacturers. To service the petrochemical market, the branch will carry an expanded stock of GE motors and drives, as well as explosion-proof products from Crouse-Hinds. The Pasadena branch will also feature a new counter-sales area and a Modification Center where some standard products can be modified to fit specific applications engineered by the customer. Mitch Williams is branch manager.

Power patch attracts interest on Wall Street: Because deregulation is creating new market opportunities for electric utilities, Wall Street no longer sees power companies as a safe and steady but somewhat boring investment play, according to a speaker at a recent St. Louis Electrical Board luncheon. Clifton Anderson, president, Western Electric Power Institute, Portland, Oregon, says because of the consolidation of the electric utility market, power companies with 3 million users will be considered niche companies, and that to really be considered a serious player, utilities will have to serve 10 million customers. Anderson also believes that as utilities search for new sources of revenue to replace the capital lost from lower electricity rates, they will offer Internet access and related telecommunications services "The telephone bill looks like peanuts compared to electricity costs," he said. "The real competition for telephone companies will be utilities."

IMARK adds new members: With the addition of four new members, IMARK Group, Oxon Hill, Md., now has over 190 distributors. The new members are five-location Elite Electric & Utility Supply, Charlottesville, Va.; two-location Mid-West Wholesale Lighting, Los Angeles, Calif.; N&S Electric, Huntington Station, N.Y., a single-house distributor; and Westburne Electric Supply (Ohio Division), Dayton, Ohio, with three locations in Ohio.

NAW offers discounts on new management book: The National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (NAW), Washington, is offering pre-release discounts on its newest management text, "Distribution Management in the New Economy: A Blueprint for Success." Authored by Gerhard Drechsler, the book explores why so many current management techniques don't work in today's competitive market and offers many alternative strategies. Pre-release prices are $53 for NAW direct members, $66 for NAW member associations and $76 for non-members. For ordering information, check out NAW's Web site at www.nawpubs.org.