Content area
Full Text
Electrical Wholesaling's annual ranking of the largest distributors of electrical supplies is more than just a listing of the companies with the highest sales volume, Since Andrea Herbert, the magazine's late chief editor, started compiling it back in the late 1970s, the Top 200 listing has proven to be an accurate reflection of the market as a whole. It has always done a great job of calling attention to the fastest-growing companies. But it has also always taught Electrical Whole-saling's editors and readers about the changes shaping the electrical wholesaling industry.
If you compare the analyses accompanying each year's listing, you will see that no two years are quite the same. For instance, during the most recent recession, our annual Top 200 reports were loaded with the comments of distributor executives about how they were surviving the horrific economic climate. During the acquisition surges of the late-1990s and mid-2000s, the analyses explored a bit more on how many Top 200 distributors were acquired and the growing influence of the national chains that were doing much of the acquiring.
In some of those years it wasn't at all uncommon for more than 10 Top 200 distributors to be acquired. The companies that have accounted for most of those acquisitions over the past 20 years - Consolidated Electrical Distributors, Inc., Irving Texas; Rexel Inc., Dallas; Sonepar USA, Philadelphia; and WESCO International Inc., Pittsburgh - have each easily added several billion dollars to their annual sales volume through acquisitions.
Much of the interest in the Top 200 over the years has focused on the dozens of electrical distributors acquired by the larger firms and the impact it has had on the industry as a whole. But if you look closely enough at the listing each year, you will also notice a strong current of rejuvenation, as entrepreneurially minded distributors build new companies with enough sales volume to be ranked. This year we welcome two of these companies to the listing - Blazer Electric Supply Inc., Colorado Springs, Colo., which made the list after Mike and Steve Blazer got back into the electrical market less than four years ago; and FirstSOURCE Electrical Supply, Houston, which was started up by Phil DeLoache and some other experienced industry professionials in 2008....