Winsupply Inc., Dayton, OH, added electrical supply locations in Southern California with its purchase of Electrical Sales, Inc., Vista, CA. Terms of the purchase were not disclosed.
“Electrical Sales has established itself as a premier distributor of electrical materials to Southern California, beginning with its opening in 1984,” said Roland Gordon, president of Winsupply, in the press release. “They have an outstanding team of experts with a strong customer-centric culture that fits our organization so well. Electrical Sales serves a diversified customer base that includes industrial, OEM, large commercial, small commercial, and residential. They have a strong reputation for expertise in all areas of electrical materials including lighting.
“This acquisition gives Winsupply its first electrical distribution location on the West Coast and we see significant opportunities for growth throughout the region.”
The company will continue to do business as Electrical Sales and has 38 employees total in its two locations in Vista and San Diego. The president of Electrical Sales is Kandyce Toth, who has been with the company 18 years. She and her eight-member management team have some 125 years combined experience in electrical distribution.
The founder and former owner of Electrical Sales, Don Hartley, expressed his appreciation to his many long-term employees, customers and suppliers for their loyalty and support over the years in the press release. "After considering multiple options I am confident that Winsupply, with their unique operating model, offers the best possible opportunity for continued growth and success for all," he said.
Toth and other key managers will be offered the opportunity to purchase equity in Electrical Sales, Inc. In the Winsupply co-ownership business model, Winsupply Inc. has majority equity in each of its locations, while the local company presidents and sometimes employees own substantial equity. With this model, local companies have the autonomy and flexibility to decide how best to meet the needs of the customers in their markets.
Winsupply provides the local company locations investment capital, sourcing and distribution, and other support services such as business consulting, accounting, payroll, IT, training and marketing. The centralized support allows local operators to focus on their customers, local markets and products. Winsupply was ranked #33 on Electrical Wholesaling’s 2016 Top 200 listing of the largest electrical distributors in North America.
About the Author
Jim Lucy Blog
Chief Editor
Jim Lucy has been wandering through the electrical market for more than 30 years, most of the time as an editor for Electrical Wholesaling, Electrical Marketing newsletter and CEE News. During that time he and the editorial team for the publications have won numerous national awards for their coverage of the electrical business. He showed an early interest in electricity, when as a youth he had an idea for a hot dog cooker. Unfortunately, the first crude prototype malfunctioned and the arc nearly blew him out of his parents' basement. Before becoming an editor for Electrical Wholesaling magazine and Electrical Marketing, he earned a BA degree in journalism and a MA in communications from Glassboro State College, Glassboro, NJ., which is formerly best known as the site of the 1967 summit meeting between President Lyndon Johnson and Russian Premier Aleksei Nikolayevich Kosygin, and now best known as the New Jersey state college that changed its name in 1992 to Rowan University because of a generous $100 million donation by N.J. zillionaire industrialist Henry Rowan. Jim is a Brooklyn-born Jersey Guy happily transplanted in the fertile plains of Kansas for the past 20 years.