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Benfield Electric expands with purchase of Central Electrical

Jan. 1, 2003
Benfield Electric Supply Co., Inc., White Plains, N.Y., increased its presence in the highly competitive Manhattan area with the purchase of Central Electrical

Benfield Electric Supply Co., Inc., White Plains, N.Y., increased its presence in the highly competitive Manhattan area with the purchase of Central Electrical Supply Corp., New York, N.Y., for an undisclosed sum. Benfield bought all of Central's operations, including the operating division serving the city's elevator market.

Benfield is consolidating Central's Manhattan and Queens locations into a renovated, 63,000-sq-ft warehouse in Long Island City, a community in the Queens borough. Central's Queens operations have already moved to the facility, and all area operations, including data/communications inventory should be there in March 1998, said Roy C. Kohli, Benfield chief executive officer.

Kohli declined to disclose Central's 1997 sales figures. Benfield's fiscal year ended with $54 million in sales recorded. Benfield is the 107th largest electrical distributor in the country, with 1996 sales of approximately $45 million.

Central is a 60-year-old electrical wholesale distributor with 37 employees. Former principles Robert Kwintner, Paul Spector and Robert DeFrancesco will remain with the company, which will retain its name and operate as Benfield's wholly owned subsidiary.

About the Author

Doug Chandler | Senior Staff Writer

Doug has been reporting and writing on the electrical industry for Electrical Wholesaling and Electrical Marketing since 1992 and still finds the industry’s evolution and the characters who inhabit its companies endlessly fascinating. That was true even before e-commerce, LED lighting and distributed generation began to disrupt so many of the electrical industry’s traditional practices.

Doug earned a BA in English Literature from the University of Kansas after spending a few years in KU’s William Allen White School of Journalism, then deciding he absolutely did not want to be a journalist. In the company of his wife, two kids, two dogs and two cats, he spends a lot of time in the garden and the kitchen – growing food, cooking, brewing beer – and helping to run the family coffee shop.

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