2019 M&A Activity in Top 200 Ranking Hits an Estimated $800 Million So Far this Year

EW’s annual ranking of the 200 largest electrical distributors in North America offers a good snapshot of the industry as a whole. EM’s editors saw three core trends emerge from the survey data collected from companies on the listing:

•2019 sales forecasts point to a strong year in the electrical market, with a national increase in revenues of +6% or better, which falls in line with the EW Market Planning Guide’s 2019 forecast of 6.1%.

•Acquisitions continue to change the landscape of the industry, and the change in ownership for the four Top 200 distributors acquired so far in 2019 represents an estimated $800 million or more in revenues.

•The oil & gas market and data centers are two of the most active end user market segments.

It was interesting to see how many electrical distributors are supplying projects in EM’s database of construction projects of at least $100 million that we update on a quarterly basis. Quite a few distributors are working on New York’s Hudson Yards mega-project, as well as the many data centers that Google, Facebook, Apple and other tech companies are now building.

The market’s consolidation was once again the most visible trend, and with the acquisitions of Nu-Lite Electrical Wholesalers, New Orleans, LA; Sun Valley Electric Supply, Las Vegas, NV; Becker Electric Supply, Dayton, OH; and North Coast Electric, Seattle, WA; at least 28 Top 200 distributors have been acquired in the past five years. From 2017 to mid-year 2019, acquisitions account for at least $2 billion in total revenue.

The Top 200 electrical distributors account for 51% of the electrical wholesaling industry’s estimated $108.1 billion in 2018 revenues. See the chart on page 2 for the Top 50 largest distributors.