CED Expands In Houston With Purchases Of Owen Electric Supply, Project Lighting

July 24, 2008
Consolidated Electrical Distributors (CED), Westlake Village, Calif., one of the nation’s largest electrical distributors, has expanded its holdings in Houston with the acquisitions of Owen Electric Supply Co. and Project Lighting Co. Inc.

Consolidated Electrical Distributors (CED), Westlake Village, Calif., one of the nation’s largest electrical distributors, has expanded its holdings in Houston with the acquisitions of Owen Electric Supply Co. and Project Lighting Co. Inc.

Project Lighting Co. is a distributor of lighting and fan products to the residential multi-family builders in Texas and the Southwest. Owen Electric Supply is a full-line electrical wholesaler based in Houston.

CED, with an estimated 6,400 electrical employees and 500 locations, ranks as the nation’s fifth largest electrical distributor, according to Electrical Wholesaling magazine’s Top 200 listing for 2008.

Burk Burkhardt of HT Capital Advisors LLC, New York City, handled the sale of both companies.

HT Capital has been an advisor to several other business owners who sold their electrical distributorships, including Braid Electric Co., Nashville, Tenn.; Crawford Electric Supply, Dallas; Friedman Electric Supply Co., Exeter, Pa.; Ralph Pill Electric Supply Co., Boston; Stuart C. Irby Co., Jackson, Miss; and Wiedenbach-Brown, Hawthorne, N.Y.

As part of a company policy, CED does not comment on acquisitions.

CED has been comparatively quiet on the acquisition front in recent years, but the company made a large acquisition in 2007 when it purchased USESI Electrical Services, Exton, Pa. Other acquisitions that CED has made in the past five years include Cain Electrical Supply, Big Spring, Texas; and Peterson Electric Supply Co. Inc., Louisville, Ky.

One manufacturers’ rep in Houston said CED’s purchase of Owen Electric Supply gives CED, which had two locations in Houston proper (one commercial and one residential), a primarily residentially oriented distributor.

Several years ago Owen Electric Supply acquired a distributor called Tidal Electric, which had an operation in Galveston and one midway between Galveston and Houston. This also gives CED a presence in those areas, he said.

The Houston rep said he and others in the Houston electrical industry were a bit surprised that CED bought a residentially oriented distributor at a time when the residential market is down. He is seeing a trend by electrical distributors in the Houston market to add branches in downtown Houston and the surrounding suburbs.