Market Updates – WESCO, Graybar, Sonepar, Codale

How about a little Reading Round-Up for the week … a collection of information we’ve found on some of the industries major players:


WESCO
WESCO announced it’s Q2 earnings last week. Some interesting points (from Zacks as well as the call and Q&A transcript):

• Utility, Commercial, Institutional and Government business was up double digits
• Construction and industrial were up mid-high single digits
• WESCO feels that it is growing it’s construction business greater than the market
• Gross margin is 19.6%
• They expect 9-11% growth of which 4% comes from acquisitions
• WESCO closed on 2 acquisitions … one to support Canada, the other to diversify into the safety business.
• From John Engel regarding WESCO’s acquisition (and growth) strategy in response to a question regarding WESCO’s 2 recent acquisitions, “I would tell you that going forward you should expect to see those same types of acquisitions. You should not expect to see just classic pure play electrical distribution house where we’re just trying to capture and roll up. We’d rather take share organically but then supplement and strengthen the portfolio with these acquisitions that broaden our product and services.”

Graybar

• Interesting case study from Graybar regarding financing lighting / energy efficiency projects.  They were able to finance the labor and materials, contracted for the labor and are billing the customer for a lease.  A win-win-win … material sold (makes Graybar and suppliers happy), labor installed (makes contractor happy) and customer gets improved energy efficiency!  If Graybar can arrange this type of financing, perhaps there are opportunities for others … either through banks / leasing firms or perhaps marketing groups could undertake this initiative on behalf of their members and offer this service?

Sonepar

• Sonepar, and their Cooper Electric operating company, are communicating more electronically … overseas, within their footprint and throughout the country – presumably to share best practices and review financial performance.  Check out what the new video conference center they’ve invested in
• Sonepar Canada extensively used social media to promote its Energy Week initiatives in May. Check it out.

Codale

Every IT manager, and president / owner for that matter, is concerned with their network safety.  With the increasing usage of iPhones, iPads, Android devices and other “remote access” technology, security is becoming an even bigger concern … especially when companies are building custom apps and salespeople have company information on their mobile devices.
Codale recently addressed this issue by working with Zenprise which has a system that enables Codale to manage company-owned and employee-owned systems.

We’re not endorsing the company (we don’t know them) but we’re confident that Codale would share whom else they may have reviewed for the project.

What else are you doing, or see competitors doing?