A major fastener distributor’s run as a subsidiary of a Japanese industrial conglomerate has come to an end after more than five years — placing it squarely back in the private equity world.
Truelink Capital said in late November that it had reached an agreement with Kyocera Corporation to acquire SouthernCarlson Inc., the Nebraska-based national distributor of fasteners, tools, packaging and other industrial supplies. The announcement brought an abrupt halt to an ambitious effort by Kyocera – a manufacturing and technology giant with combined revenues of nearly $12.8 billion in its most recent fiscal year – to branch into the American distribution market. Kyocera officials believed that a major U.S. distribution subsidiary would allow it to serve a “wide range of customers” across North America — but the arrangement didn’t end up panning out as expected.
SouthernCarlson, in some ways, reflects many of the shifts in the broader distribution sector in recent years. The business was formed a decade ago through a merger of three decades-old regional suppliers: Omaha-based Carlson Systems, Georgia’s Kentec and Southern Fastening Systems in Alabama. Those companies, along with acquisition Duo-Fast Carolinas in Charlotte, combined for a footprint of more than 140 facilities across 34 states. Company officials said at the time that the merger would create the scale to ”provide the very best products at competitive pricing that our customers demand and deserve.”
Then, just over seven months after its creation, the newly combined company was snapped up by a private equity firm. Kelso and Company announced its agreement to buy SouthernCarlson in mid-2016, touting it as “the first fastener distribution business with national scale.” The following year, the business expanded, acquiring Minnesota’s Air King Fastening Systems and California’s River City Building Supply. Two years after that, SouthernCarlson drew attention from across the Pacific.
Kyocera, which began as a ceramics factory in Kyoto in the late 1950s, gradually grew into a maker of everything from advanced electronics and automotive parts to printers and medical devices. In the late 1970s, the company rolled out its first industrial tools – a line of high-speed metal processing tools – before expanding into cutting tools, power tools and pneumatic tools for a wide range of applications. SouthernCarlson, Kyocera officials said after buying the business, offered “the most recognized and highest-quality brands” of fasteners, tools and other supplies and services. It tabbed Taka Kato from its manufacturing businesses to lead its new subsidiary.
The Japanese conglomerate, Kato told CEO Magazine in 2022, had “a vision” to complement its manufacturing capabilities with a distribution operation — and that SouthernCarlson was “the best way to realize and expand it.” He hailed the culture of SouthernCarlson and said that he believed officials had struck a balance between Kyoto and Omaha, and the famously disparate business cultures of each nation.
“I believe we’ve found the right mix by taking positives from both and creating something unique,” Kato told the publication.
But that 2022 profile of Kato also contained alarm bells for those returning to look for them: he discussed the challenges in applying Kyocera’s manufacturing philosophy to the distribution sector, and of the need to make improvements both in its sales and distribution infrastructure and in internal and external communication.
SouthernCarlson initially eclipsed Kyocera’s expectations for the business – sales soared at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, CEO Magazine’s report noted – but things eventually came back down to Earth for the distributor and its sweeping parent organization. Last summer, while reporting the company’s financial results for the first quarter of its 2026 fiscal year, Kyocera officials said that although SouthernCarlson posted sales of approximately $887 million in the 2025 fiscal year, the business failed to bolster the overall company’s earnings totals. Officials said that they had started a review of “strategic options” for the business, including a potential sale.
“Our recent acquisitions, such as SouthernCarlson and power devices business, did not contribute much to earnings,” Kyocera President Hideo Tanimoto said in the earnings call. “And as a result, we had to let them go.”
For TrueLink, the Los Angeles firm founded in 2022 by Platinum Equity veterans Todd Golditch and Luke Myers, the decision provided an opportunity to bolster its distribution holdings. The middle-market firm targets companies in the industrial and “tech-enabled” service markets, and had previously acquired ventilation and filtration systems provider Air Distribution Technologies and cleaning solutions brand Zep Inc., among others. Golditch said that the firm planned to support the business’ “next phase of growth” through both “commercial and operational initiatives” and “strategic M&A.”
SouthernCarlson officials, meanwhile, said that after growing its business and expanding into new markets under Kyocera, its new ownership would help “accelerate the achievement of our strategic vision as we transition into an independent company.”
“With Truelink’s support,” said President and CEO Andrei Militaru, “we look forward to building on our legacy of operational excellence, best-in-class customer service, and proven reliability.”
This column originally appeared in the January/February issue of Industrial Distribution magazine. Sign up here to subscribe to ID’s Today in Industrial Distribution daily newsletter.
