Reading Round-up Featuring Cooper, Graybar, Crescent, Gexpro and more

As I was cleaning out my email this weekend I thought, “good time for a reading round-up”, especially given some of the news that has been coming out this month.

September starts the meeting season with two early meetings being a major Graybar meeting as well as the WESCO supplier meeting and in a couple of weeks is the AD meeting, followed by IMARK and then NAED (exhausted yet!)

• Congratulations to Cooper.  Cooper Industries was announced as Graybar’s supplier of the year and Crouse Hinds was announced as WESCO’s supplier of the year.  Nice way to introduce yourselves to Eaton.  Now the challenge is a repeat!
• Looks like there could be a new acquirer in town.  Graybar is looking for a Manager, Strategic Planning.  Responsibilities for the role include:
• The Manager, Strategic Planning will support Graybar in leading organizational strategic planning efforts related to areas, such as the evaluation of opportunities for business growth and development, potential mergers and acquisitions, and market penetration. The position will also be responsible for the business and project plans associated with identified opportunities, as well as monitoring the execution and implementation of plans.
• Can anyone remember the last Graybar acquisition? Shows what can happen when a new management culture is being infused into a company.
• Speaking of acquisitions, Crescent Electric’s unstated (or maybe it was stated) reason for joining IMARK is coming to fruition.  After coming in second in a couple of deals (according to sources) and being successful in Pittsburgh with McCullough, last week Crescent bought Stoneway Electric … a $130M company with 14 locations.  Some thoughts:
• The 2 acquisitions were both Schneider Electric / Square D distributors.  Does Crescent have a preference for Schneider Electric distributors?
• Is IMARK helping to facilitate arrangements through its IMARK First program (sell to a member) or have all companies solicited offers from the open market?
• With Stoneway and Codale now sold, other than North Coast, there are not any significant independent distributors left in the Pacific Northwest.
• And this begs a question that relates to last week’s posting on value of marketing groups.  Given the number of acquisitions of larger companies ($100M+) and rumors that more could happen by the end of the year, if a group reverts to being primarily small companies, will manufacturers be as supportive? Will they have to offer strong rebates? Could a group of today revert to a slightly larger version of what Equity and EDN were? What characteristics will manufacturers of tomorrow (maybe 2-3-5 years) look for in groups?
• Acuity – interesting to see Dominic Pileggi of T&B join their BOD. Congrats.
• Gexpro has launched a new online catalog system which bears looking at.  This catalog is literally a library of manufacturer catalogs … some going back years.