Sterling Inc history

In 1926, the interests of the Sterling Products Co. incorporated the American Home Products Co.

The company's forerunner, Sterling Radio Products, was founded in 1939 as a radio-parts wholesaler by Henry M. Spolane.

In the words of the 1948 United States Federal Trade Commission report on the Merger Movement, the company had "pursued a consistent policy of acquiring competitors, companies engaged in auxiliary lines of activity, and firms in extraneous lines.

The company name was changed to Sterling Electronics, Inc. in 1959.

Diebold retired to Palm Beach, FL, and died in 1964.

Its net sales reached $10.2 million in fiscal 1966 (the year ended April 2, 1966), when its net income was $309,219.

Sterling Electronics, Inc. was reorganized as a holding company, Sterling Electronics Corp., in 1967, and Spolane became its chairman the following year.

Revenues rose to $85.7 million in fiscal 1970.

Sterling Electronics' growth came to an ugly end in fiscal 1971, when it lost $7.6 million on sales of $65.5 million.

E & M Laboratories, an unprofitable subsidiary, was sold to TRAK Microwave Corp. in 1976.

Sterling Electronics sold its chain of retail stores in 1978.

Manufacturing had long been more profitable to the company than distributing and in fiscal 1983 accounted for 64 percent of operating income, although only 16 percent of sales.

Today, it is part of the Signet Group, the largest specialty jewelry retailer in the US, UK and Canada, which acquired the Akron jeweler in 1987.

After a strong fiscal 1989, in which it had net income of $2.8 million on record revenues of $90.7 million, Sterling Electronics saw sales slump because of a glut in computer memory chips.

Prominent among these was Passive Technology Sales, Inc., a $7-million-a-year California distributor purchased in 1990 for stock and $900,000 in cash.

Michael Spolane died in January 1994.

Semiconductors accounted for 47 percent of sales in 1995; passive and electromechanical products for 31 percent; connector products for 21 percent; and manufacturing-group products for one percent.