Q3 & the late Summertime at ECCO 2019

September 3, 2019

Given we are already well into the late summer and football season, I wanted to share a few things with you including an update on our business and our new operating engagement and partnership with the biggest little distributor in the USA!.

First, we closed our first fiscal half of the year with over 20% growth in revenues.  Strong sales performance was due to several factors, but none as large as the dedicated team at ECCO “connecting solutions together™” for both our customers and suppliers.  Our talented team continues to amaze me and I often have to pay off a few fun bets for their exceeding my expectations, (ask anyone about my run down Central Ave. last month!).  Importantly, our growth has been recognized by top industry publications such as Electronics Sourcing May 2019 edition which vaulted ECCO into the TOP 50 and in SourceToday’s June 2019 edition naming us “a key distributor to watch”.

Still, we have experienced growing pains that were exacerbated by our administration’s trade war with China and the associated tariffs on 25% of our Cost of Goods Sold. This pain to our bottom line came as we were digesting 2 rather large purchases (May 2018-our purchase of Methode Electronics’ ShrinkMate EMI RFI heat shielding product line, and November 2018, our purchase of Magellan Distribution’s Aerospace and Defense division).  Fortunately, ECCO has strong relationships within our industry and this is evidenced by the partnership we have entered into with the ownership at Hughes Peters based near Dayton OH. This summer, the HP team decided to partner with us along with an investment in ECCO.  So, while Hughes Peters, www.hughespeters.com, and ECCO, www.eccoconnectors.com, are more closely linked , we will continue to be totally independently operated as 2 separate organizations with very different business models.  ECCO is an interconnect specialist distributor, while Hughes Peters is a local and regional electronic components distributor with branch offices and broad supply chain solutions for its customers.

Lastly, as we embark on our 2^nd half of 2019 I want to thank everyone who has supported ECCO over the past several years and ask for your continued support.  It has been my intent to build the kind of company that people want to work at, customers want to do business with, and stakeholders want to invest in.  My vision continues as our talented team works hard to make our branding phrase “Connecting Solutions…Together™” come alive.

Now onward and upward!

Respectfully yours, and enjoy the remainder of your summer and early fall.

Bernard…