The news that — Midwest distributors Republic Companies, an HVAC and electrical distributor and T.F. Ehrhart, a HVACR distributor caught our attention this week.
On a personal note, I have seen the bright red Republic Trucks pass the electrical distributor competitor I worked for too many times to count. A shout out to whomever decided to outfit to Republic Trucks with a bright red color and logo, I always admired how their driving billboards stood out and made an impression as a competitor.
Republic Companies is a strong distributor in Electrical. Mechanical, and HVACR with locations in Eastern Iowa, Southern Wisconsin, and Western and Central Illinois. They serve all three channels in all the markets they serve. Republic announced last month another new location coming soon in Monona WI (a suburb of Madison). Their other branch locations are Des Moines, Davenport, Cedar Rapids, and Dubuque in Iowa and Peoria in Central Illinois. In you are familiar with the area you know that Republic serves a very wide area and many markets in between their physical locations.
T.F. Ehrhart has two locations in the current Republic Coverage area – Quincy and Peoria IL, and two locations in Southwestern Missouri (Springfield and Lake Osage) that are 360 miles plus from the closest existing Republic location in Peoria IL.
In looking at the two websites (Republic and T.F. Ehrhart) Republic’s carriers HVAC brands such as YORK, Luxaire, Mitsubishi, and Gree, alongside electrical solutions from Schneider Electric and ABB.
T.F. Ehrhart carries products from Luxaire, Bosch, and Samsung and has a more traditional HVACR service product set (the product pull downs online include IAQ, Central Equipment, Boilers, Hydronics, Ducting, Venting, and Parts and Supplies) so the HVACR contractor commercial and residential likely accounts for the vast majority of their business.
In the press release the new merger leadership team shared a couple of quotes.
“This merger represents a natural fit for both companies,” said Todd Wade, CEO of Republic Companies. “By combining our resources, product lines, and industry expertise, we are better positioned to provide our customers with expanded product availability, deeper technical support, and enhanced logistics capabilities.”
Jim Schelpphorst, president of T.F. Ehrhart added that “This partnership will provide our customers with even greater access to leading HVAC and electrical solutions.”
This is a combination of an experienced “Channel Drifter” (my fun term for a distributor who is strong in multiple channels) like Republic who is a leading Electrical, Mechanical, and HVACR distributor with a standard distributor who primarily serves one channel like T.F. Ehrhart (HVACR).
What happens in the single channel markets Springfield Missouri will be interesting to observe long term. The key electrical and mechanical manufacturers that support the Republic footprint have existing partners in Southwestern Missouri.
They will likely be some buying group implications as Republic is an Affiliated Distributor (AD) member and in my research, I did not find that T.F. Ehrhart is an AD or IMARK member.
Republic is one of those distributors (e.g. JH Larson, DSG (formerly Dakota Supply Group)) that is serves the Electrical, HVACR and Mechanical Channel. This merger just adds new markets and product portfolio to the merged company and opens up new market potential.
The “Channel Drift” and combination of distributors continues, and it will be interesting to see how this merger “drifts’ and evolves.
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