Interline Brands Files Registration Statement For Initial Public Offering

July 9, 2004
Interline Brands Inc., a national distributor and direct marketer of electrical supplies and other maintenance, repair and operations products, said its newly formed corporation has filed for an initial public offering of the parent’s common stock.

Interline Brands Inc., a national distributor and direct marketer of electrical supplies and other maintenance, repair and operations products, said its newly formed corporation has filed for an initial public offering of the parent’s common stock.

Based in Jacksonville, Fla., Interline Brands, which has 2,200 employees and annual sales of more than $635 million, sells more than 45,000 plumbing, hardware, electrical, janitorial and related products through more than 60 distribution centers to professional contractors, facilities maintenance professionals, hardware stores and other customers across North America and Central America.

Interline Brands ranks eighth on Industrial Distribution magazine’s The Big 50 listing of the largest industrial distributors in North America.

The company, which has quietly built up its electrical product offering, bought Florida Lighting Inc., a distributor of specialty lighting and electrical products in Pompano Beach, in 2003. Interline’s foray into the electrical market is bolstered by a stable of well-known electrical brands and includes products from Thomas & Betts, Westinghouse, Square D, GE, Eagle/Cooper Wiring Devices, Steel City, Carlon, Leviton and Pass & Seymour. Interline Brands sells these products and other MRO supplies through catalogs and Web sites operated by its Wilmar, Barnett, Hardware Express and Maintenance USA business.

Prior to the completion of the initial public offering, Interline Brands will merge with a subsidiary of the new parent corporation, and, following the initial public offering, the parent corporation (a Delaware company) will be named Interline Brands Inc. The offering, which will be made by an underwriting syndicate led by Credit Suisse First Boston LLC and Lehman Brothers Inc., will include only primary shares. The proceeds of the proposed offering are to be used among other things to repay a portion of Interline Brands’ indebtedness. A registration statement has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, but has not yet become effective.

Interline was formed through a series of mergers that combined over 20 companies in the plumbing supply or facilities maintenance industries. The company began as publicly traded Wilmar Industries, but changed its name to Interline Brands in 2000 after it bought Barnett Industries.

Interline Brands is primarily owned by JPMorgan Partners, Parthenon Capital, Sterling Investment Partners, a General Motors pension fund, and management.