Latest from Mag

Plenty of executive appointments over the past two weeks. Here’s Electrical Marketing’s expanded coverage of personnel changes in the electrical market.
Dec. 21, 2012
Wire man John Pasqual and lighting rep Jack Melnick
Dec. 21, 2012
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Electrical product prices remained on their flat trend, showing no change from October and little change in almost all major product categories.
Dec. 21, 2012
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Privately-owned housing starts in November were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 861,000, 3% below the revised October estimate, but 21.6% above the Nov. 2011 rate.
Dec. 21, 2012
Dec. 21, 2012
Veteran reps form new agency in Raleigh; WinWholesale buys Lloyd Graves in Texas; United Electric Supply expands through acquisition; and more.
Dec. 21, 2012
W.W. Grainger Inc., Lake Forest, Ill., announced plans to purchase Techni-Tool Inc., Worcester, Pa., a 200-plus employee distributor supplying customers in the cable television...
Dec. 21, 2012
Kaman Industrial Technologies (KIT), the industrial distribution business Kaman Corp., Bloomfield, Conn., has built up in recent acquisitions of Minarik, Zeller Electric and others...
Dec. 21, 2012
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg offered an update on the city’s plans to renovate its infrastructure to withstand future storms.
Dec. 7, 2012

Plumbing and Tool Buying/Marketing Groups Join IMARK in UCAA Cooperative

United Cooperatives Alliance of the Americas (UCAA), the cooperative that the IMARK electrical buying/marketing group, Bowie, Md., formed with the Embassy Group in the plumbing and HVAC trades, has expanded into several other trades.
Aug. 10, 2012
2 min read

United Cooperatives Alliance of the Americas (UCAA), the cooperative that the IMARK electrical buying/marketing group, Bowie, Md., formed with the Embassy Group in the plumbing and HVAC trades, has expanded into several other trades. Joining UCAA are the Forte Buying Group for independent decorative plumbing and hardware distributors and the Sphere 1 buying/marketing group for independent tool and fastener distributors. Forte was established in 2002 and now has 250 members in the United States and Canada, while Sphere 1 was established in 1999 and is a cooperative of 132 independent tool and fastener distributors with 450 locations.

According to information on its website, UCAA was founded by IMARK and the Elgin, Ill.-based Embassy as a federation of member-owned cooperatives “to preserve and protect the cooperative model and to share best practices in an effort to improve returns, reduce cost and enhance business practices for its members.”

IMARK’s 900 members represent more than $11 billion in combined sales and operate more than 2,000 branches. Eighty of its members are ranked in Electrical Wholesaling’s listing of the 200 largest electrical distributors. More than 100 electrical manufacturers work with IMARK distributors.

In other news at IMARK, the group recently joined IMELCO, an international consortium of 12 buying/marketing groups from Europe and Australia that in 2011 had combined electrical sales of $8.4 billion.