BlackHawk Industrial is a new entity formed by Bill Scheller, former CEO of ORS-Nasco and Brazos Private Equity Partners.

BlackHawk Industrial is implementing a very active buy-and-build strategy in the highly fragmented, $400 billion industrial distribution market. BlackHawk believes that the industrial distribution industry has over 100,000 independent distributors with the majority of these companies being small, regionally focused, family-owned, or owner-operated businesses.

BlackHawk Industrial believes that these smaller distributors have very strong customer relationships in their local markets and out compete the “big boys”. These successful small regional companies typically lack scale, resources, and capital to grow their businesses.

On October 1, 2010 BlackHawk Industrial announced the acquisition of Duncan Industrial, an industrial distributor focused on integrated supply solutions. Founded in 1948, Duncan Industrial, is a leading distributor of name-brand industrial MRO supplies and equipment. Duncan Industrial also offers specialized, integrated services that delivers tailored solutions for inventory and spend management, point of use, product issuance, product application, information management and other services within the client’s operations. Headquartered in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Duncan Industrial has employees working in offices and client facilities across North America.

BlackHawk believes that Duncan Industrial, as the initial acquisition, will be an excellent platform to create one of the leading industrial distribution companies in the U.S. We believe that the acquisition of Duncan Industrial will be the first of many future acquisitions by BlackHawk.

BlackHawk’s focus will be:

• acquisition of other regional distributors that will increase our scale and expand our footprint;
• the realization of meaningful synergies with future add-on acquisitions including better purchasing, expansion in key resources, adding additional facilities, and improvement of operating efficiencies and working capital management;
• addition of talented corporate resources;
• the opportunity to leverage strong customer relationships and product expertise to expand revenue with existing customers.

BlackHawk and Brazos have identified a pipeline of several additional opportunities and intends for BlackHawk to be an ongoing and active acquirer of other industrial distributors.