WESCO Completes $4.5 Billion Acquisition of Anixter

It's officially official: Anixter International is now part of WESCO International.

WESCO announced Monday that its landmark acquisition of Anixter — a deal valued at $4.5 billion — had completed. It results in an electrical, industrial, data networking and security products distributor that had combined 2019 sales of $17 billion.

Anixter became a wholly-owned subsidiary of WESCO upon the transaction completion, and its shares ended trading prior to Monday's market open. Each share of Anixter common stock has been converted into the right to receive $72.82 in cash (without interest), 0.2397 shares of WESCO common stock and preferred stock consideration. The newly-issued shares of WESCO common and depositary shares commenced trading on the New York Stock Exchange Monday, with the depositary shares trading under ticker symbol WCC PR A. 

EngelJohn Engel, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, said, "Today marks a significant milestone for WESCO and Anixter. In combining two industry leaders with successful track records, we are creating the premier electrical, communications and utility distribution and supply chain solutions company in the world," said John Engel, WESCO chairman, president and CEO. "This is a transformational combination that provides substantial value creation for our customers, supplier partners, employees, investors, and the communities in which we operate. WESCO's capabilities in industrial, construction, and utility matched with Anixter's expertise in communications, security, and wire and cable create an industry-leading line-up for our customers. As we bring together our complementary products, services, and technologies, there are significant cross-selling opportunities that enable us to offer more solutions, to more customers, in more locations around the world. This is a growth play which will capitalize on the accelerating secular trends of electrification, increased bandwidth demand driven by higher voice, data, video and mobile usage, and the combination and digitization of our B2B value chain."

On June 1, the two companies announced their future leadership team and organizational structure that became effective Monday. See who now leads WESCO's business units here.

Monday's closing comes six months after the two distributors initially announced the merger agreement, which followed a multi-month bidding battle between WESCO and private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice. CD&R originally bid $81 per share in an acquisition agreement announced Oct. 30, 2019. That offer was later amended higher before WESCO proposed its own offer just before Christmas, and Anixter fielded another round of bids from those two companies before announcing Jan. 9 that it preferred WESCO's latest offer.

WESCO was No. 11 on Industrial Distribution's 2019 Big 50 List on account of its $3.0 billion sales of industrial products in 2018. WESCO ended its fiscal 2019 with total sales of $8.4 billion, up 2.2 percent over 2018.

"I would like to welcome all WESCO and Anixter team members to our new combined company and thank them for their outstanding dedication and service," Engel added. "We have been executing a detailed, rigorous and process-oriented integration planning effort over the past few months. The high degree of collaboration among and across the integration teams has been inspiring and underscores the strong cultural alignment between WESCO and Anixter. We are taking advantage of the opportunity to leverage the best talent and ideas of two successful organizations in forming our new, world class enterprise. Our recently announced senior management team is excited and confident we will deliver our committed synergies, above-market growth, and industry-leading margins and returns. I look forward to reporting on our progress and the success of this transformational combination in the months ahead."