Heard in the Channel: TTI buys British distributor; Premier Farnell gets new CEO

Distribution giants TTI, Inc. and Premier Farnell are among the biggest newsmakers recently, announcing key purchases and top leadership changes.

On May 31^st, TTI announced its acquisition of United Kingdom-based specialty distributor Campbell Collins, expanding the distributor’s presence in Europe and helping the company build a power solutions business there.

Campbell Collins is a specialty distributor focused on power-related products from makers of power supply and capacitor products. The company is a franchised, design-in distributor for power supply manufacturers such as Gaia Converter and Ericsson Power Modules, as well as for the full line of KEMET companies, including BHC, Arcotronics and Evox Rifa.

Campbell Collins will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of TTI.

Earlier in the month, Premier Farnell announced the promotion of Laurence Bain to chief executive officer, effective June 12^th. Bain replaces Harriet Green, who has been named chief group executive officer for travel company Thomas Cook Group.

Green joined Premier Farnell in 2006, steering its transition from a catalog distributor to a multi-channel organization. During her tenure, the company grew its e-commerce business from 12% of total sales to more than 55% and launched the industry’s first online community for engineers, element14.

Bain joined Premier Farnell as chief operating officer in 2002 and has played an integral role in the company’s transformation. Prior to joining the distributor, he spent 18 years at Motorola, including five years in the company’s semiconductor business and as vice president and COO for its Personal Communications Sector in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

More industry news

In other industry news, a slew of distributors announced awards and honors following the recent Electronics Distribution Show in Las Vegas (EDS 2012):

Allied Electronics received an Outstanding Sales Growth Award from Schneider Electric/Magnecraft, was named Distributor of the Year by L-com for the second straight year, was recognized by CHERRY with the 2011 CHERRY Partners in Growth Award, and was named to NKK Switches’ Million Dollar Club.
Amidon, Inc.received Fair-Rite Products Corp.’s Distributor of the Year Award, recognizing the distributor’s achievement in reputation, sales and growth in the Fair-Rite Products line for 2011.
Arrow Electronics was named Volume Distributor of the Year for 2011 by Littlefuse, Inc. and received the #1 Global Distributor Award from NKK Switches.
Components Center was named #1 Regional Distributor by NKK Switches.
Digi-Key was named 2011 Distributor of the Year by Sullins Connector Solutions, 2011 E-Commerce Distributor of the Year by Bourns, and received NKK Switches’ largest growth percentage award as well as its Million Dollar Club designation.
Electro Sonic was recognized by NKK Switches for having the largest growth percentage for a regional distributor.
Heilind Electronics was named toNKK Switches’ Million Dollar Club.
Mouser Electronics received 27 top supplier awards during EDS 2012 in Las Vegas. They included distributor of the year awards from Emerson Connectivity Solutions, Lumex, Neutrik, and VCC; catalog distributor of the year awards from KEMET and Littlefuse; distributor excellence awards from Amphenol Industrial, EDAC, NorComp, and Ohmite; customer growth awards from CDE and Qualtek; sales growth awards from Crydom, Lumex, Keystone Electronics, Neutrik, NKK Switches, Roving Networks, Schaffner, Schneider and TDK Epcos; product manager awards from NKK and VCC; and outstanding achievement awards from Honeywell Sensing and Control, JAE and On Semiconductor.
Newark element14 received top supplier awards from Crydom, Ohmite, Amphenol, Scheider Electric/Magnecraft, Keystone and NTE.
TTI Inc. was named Industrial Distributor of the Year by interconnect solutions provider Souriau and received the chariman’s award for sales excellence form Ohmite.