Arrow Electronics targets reverse logistics with two acquisitions

Electronics distributor Arrow Electronics Inc., Melville, N.Y., plans to acquire Converge, a leading provider of reverse logistics services, and Verical Inc., a unique ecommerce marketplace geared toward meeting the end-of-life components and parts ...
April 9, 2010

Electronics distributor Arrow Electronics Inc., Melville, N.Y., plans to acquire Converge, a leading provider of reverse logistics services, and Verical Inc., a unique ecommerce marketplace geared toward meeting the end-of-life components and parts shortage needs of customers. Converge, with 350 employees, is headquartered in Peabody, Mass., with offices in Singapore and Amsterdam, including support centers throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas. Verical is based in San Francisco.

"These acquisitions complement Arrow's global strategy by providing comprehensive services across the entire product lifecycle for suppliers and customers," said Michael Long, the company's chairman, president and CEO. "Reverse logistics is a rapidly growing area, and this acquisition builds on Arrow's global capabilities as a supply chain and logistics expert. The addition of Verical also further strengthens our ecommerce capabilities."

Arrow Electronics had 2009 sales of $14.7 billion and operates 310 locations in 51 countries and territories. Details

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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.