WESCO buys Cincinnati's RECO to bolster automation offering

WESCO International Inc., Pittsburgh, has acquired RECO, Cincinnati, Ohio, a Siemens automation, controls and electrical distributor with annual sales of approximately $25 million and six branches in the Midwest and South. RECO's key product lines include Siemens, Parker, SICK, Rittal, Weidmuller, DENSO Robotics and Molex. The company's branches in Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Louisville, Nashville and Birmingham stock automation products such as sensors, PLCs, drives, motors, robots, enclosures, Ethernet equipment and fiber optics.

In a press statement announcing the acquisition, Stephen Van Oss, WESCO's senior vice president and COO, said RECO will help WESCO expand its industrial automation and control product and service offerings. “RECO is one of the top Siemens distributors in the U.S. and we are pleased to have them become part of the WESCO team.”

WESCO has historically had a strong focus on the automation market. In the mid-1980s, the company targeted the automation market through a network of “control houses” staffed by automation engineers.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, former CEO Roy Haley acquired quite a few automation-oriented distributors that served the petrochemical, pulp and paper, and other heavy industries. These acquisitions included EESCO, Chicago and its 40-location branch network in the Midwest (1996); Ace Electric Supply Co., Jacksonville, Fla. (1996); Standard Electric Supply, Bangor, Maine (1996); Cascade Controls, Tukwila, Wash. (2007); Control Corporation of America (CCA), Richmond, Va. (2000); Industrial Electric Supply, Birmingham, Ala. (1999); Murco Inc., Monroe, La. (1996); Reily Electric Supply, Metairie, La. (1998); and WR Control Panels, Inc., Columbus, Ohio (1998).