Premier Farnell Ltd is a distributor of products for electronic system design, maintenance and repair throughout Europe, North America and Asia Pacific, with operations in 36 countries and trading in over 100. In October 2016, the firm was purchased by

Avnet Avnet, Inc. is a distributor of electronic components headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, named after Charles Avnet, who founded the company in 1921. After its start on Manhattan's Radio Row, the company became incorporated in 1955 and began tr ...

in a deal valued at approximately £691 million.

History

The firm was founded by Alan Farnell and Arthur Woffenden in 1939 in

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

, England as A.C. Farnell Limited. It was first listed on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...

in 1966. The company was based next to Wetherby railway station, later moving into larger offices on the town's Sandbeck Industrial Estate, and in 1995, into offices in

Armley Armley is a district in the west of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It starts less than from Leeds city centre. Like much of Leeds, Armley grew in the Industrial Revolution and had several mills, one of which houses now the Leeds Industrial ...

. In 1995 it acquired Combined Precision Components. As it focused on distribution, its manufacturing operations were sold the same year. In 1996 it bought the United States distributor, Premier Industrial Corporation, and changed its name to Premier Farnell. In 2001 the firm acquired

Buck & Hickman Buck & Hickman is a distributor of tools, maintenance and health & safety products. Established in 1840, the company has also produced tools under the Roebuck brand. Since 2018, Buck & Hickman is part of Rubix. References External links www.b ...

, a company which it sold in 2007. In 2006, the firm sold Kent, its specialist automotive consumables business. In the mid-2000s, the firm developed from a catalogues and trade counter business into an e-commerce operation, under the direction of

Harriet Green Harriet Green (born 12 December 1961) is a British businesswoman, who was chairman and CEO of IBM Asia Pacific, and previously led three IBM business divisions: the Internet of things, customer engagement and education businesses. She was CEO ...

, CEO, who joined the business in 2006. In 2007 the firm launched its Greater China business, Premier Electronics, with a warehouse and distribution centre in

WaiGaoQiao Shanghai Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone (), was the first Free Trade Zone to be established in China. It is situated in the North East of Pudong District, near the end of Metro Line 6. It was incorporated as part of the newly developed China (Shanghai) ...

. Towards the end of 2008 the group began the closure of Cadillac Electric, which was part of the group's Industrial Products division. During the course of 2008 the group acquired Hynetic Electronics, an Indian distributor, and in early 2009 it acquired Microdis Electronics, an electronics distributor based in Poland. In September 2009, it announced the acquisition of

CadSoft Computer GmbH EAGLE is a scriptable electronic design automation (EDA) application with schematic capture, printed circuit board (PCB) layout, auto-router and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) features. EAGLE stands for Easily Applicable Graphical Layout ...

, developer of

EAGLE Eagle is the common name for many large birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of genera, some of which are closely related. Most of the 68 species of eagle are from Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just ...

electronic design automation Electronic design automation (EDA), also referred to as electronic computer-aided design (ECAD), is a category of software tools for designing Electronics, electronic systems such as integrated circuits and printed circuit boards. The tools wo ...

software, which it later sold in 2016. In March 2016, the group sold its Akron Brass subsidiary to

IDEX Corporation IDEX Corporation, based in Northbrook, Illinois, is a publicly traded company engaged in the development, design, and manufacture of fluidics systems, optics systems, fire and rescue equipment, and other specialty engineered products. History ...

for $224.2 million. From time to time, Premier Farnell shares were a constituent of the

FTSE 250 Index The FTSE 250 Index ( "Footsie") is a capitalisation-weighted index consisting of the 101st to the 350th largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. Promotions and demotions to and from the index occur quarterly in March, June, Septemb ...

. On 17 October 2016, American company

completed its acquisition of Premier Farnell in a deal valued at approximately £691 million, leading to delisting of Premier Farnell shares. In 2019 the business was rebranded as Farnell, although the company's legal name continues to be Premier Farnell Limited.

Structure and operations

Premier Farnell Limited is a holding company with numerous subsidiaries in Europe and Asia. The group trades globally under the following names: element14 group *

Farnell element14 Farnell element14 is a distributor of products for electronic system design, maintenance and repair. Operating in 28 countries across Europe, with two regional distribution hubs in Belgium and the UK, it employs circa 1,200 people. It is the ...

in the UK and Europe * Newark element14 in the United States, Canada and Mexico * element14 in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, China and Singapore * element14 community, an online information hub and forum for electrical engineers. Other brands * CPC in the UK * Shenzhen Embest Technology

Products

, Premier Farnell stocks 900,000 products across its regional warehouses. It also sells about half of the

Raspberry Pi Raspberry Pi () is a series of small single-board computers (SBCs) developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in association with Broadcom. The Raspberry Pi project originally leaned towards the promotion of teaching basic ...

computers distributed worldwide.

Awards

* ECMOD Direct Commerce Award for the best online business B2B, 2012 *BiTC Corporate Responsibility Index – Platinum status, 2012 *

Ethisphere Institute The Ethisphere Institute is a for-profit company that defines and measures corporate ethical standards, recognizes companies that excel, and promotes best practices in corporate ethics. The company is located in Scottsdale, Arizona. The compa ...

– World's Most Ethical Companies List, 2012

References

External links

* {{Authority control Electronic component distributors Distribution companies of the United Kingdom Companies based in Leeds Electronics companies established in 1939 1939 establishments in the United Kingdom Wetherby 2016 mergers and acquisitions Companies formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange