Agreements With U.S., Canadian Retail Chains : CMS Signs 2 Multimillion-Dollar Distribution Deals
CMS Enhancements, a fast-growing Tustin computer storage products manufacturer, has signed separate multimillion-dollar distribution agreements with a large U.S. computer retail chain and a Canadian retailer.
CMS said its contract with Zentronics, a computer chain based in Ontario, Canada, has an annual value of $6 million. The second agreement, with Inacomp, an 80-store national computer chain with headquarters in Troy, Mich., should be worth “considerably more” than the Zentronics pact, said Ted James, marketing manager. The company declined, however, to give a specific value for its contract with Inacomp.
The agreement calls for Inacomp to sell CMS’ full line of hard and floppy disk drives and other data storage products for personal computers made by IBM, Apple, Compaq and other manufacturers.
Zentronics will sell CMS products at its stores throughout Canada.
The agreements “are part of our planned expansion program to make our products more readily available to computer users everywhere,” James said. “We’re growing very rapidly and could easily sell more products that we can manufacture.”
CMS had sales of $102 million last year and expects to top $150 million in sales for its current fiscal year, which ends June 30.
CMS’ business grown so quickly, James said, that it has had difficulty obtaining components from outside suppliers. “We’re in the process of lining up second and third vendors for various components. We’re having trouble finding any one vendor that has that much manufacturing capacity.”
The company assembles components at its plant in Tustin. CMS also has manufacturing operations in Singapore. In March, CMS bought a tape drive manufacturing operation in Singapore from North Atlantic Industries, a New York computer and aerospace company.
Next month, CMS will expand its local operations when it moves into a 40,000-square-foot manufacturing and office building it has leased next to its Tustin facility.
