In another move to expand into additional product areas beyond its core focus on the electrical market, WESCO International Inc., Pittsburgh, Pa., announced plans to acquire Conney Safety Products, Madison, Wis., a distributor of MRO safety products that does approximately $85 million in annual sales. The deal is expected to close next month.
According to a press release announcing the acquisition, the addition of Conney Safety Products is expected to significantly strengthen WESCO's safety products and service portfolio and enhance the company's e-commerce capabilities. Conney will function as a center of excellence supporting the safety needs for WESCO's customers, including its global accounts, utility and integrated supply customers.
Mr. John J. Engel, WESCO's chairman and CEO, said in that press release, "The addition of Conney to the WESCO team supports our One WESCO growth strategy and expands our MRO supplier base, enabling us to bring additional safety products and services to our customers.”
With $5.98 billion in North American sales, WESCO ranks #2 on Electrical Wholesaling magazine's 2012 listing of the Top 200 distributors.
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Jim Lucy Blog
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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.