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Prime Line Acquires Jetline

Top 40 supplier Prime Line (asi/79530) announced this morning that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire supplier firm Jetline (asi/63344). The two sides expect the deal to officially close by the end of this month.

“We are very excited to welcome Jetline to the Prime family and immediately start to give our distributor customers even more products and services to choose from,” said Jeff Lederer, CEO of Prime. “Jetline has excelled by strategically focusing on lower-priced items with deep inventory and free 24 hour rush service, which we absolutely will continue to offer.”

Following closure of the deal, Eric Levin, founder and CEO of Jetline, will take on the role of executive vice president of Prime Line. And, Michael Honig, president of Jetline, will become a vice president of Prime Line. Jetline will also maintain its own identity and ASI number in the marketplace, and Prime will continue to operate Jetline’s facility in Gaffney, SC.

“Together, we’ll have one of the largest inventories in the industry,” Lederer told Counselor in an exclusive interview this week. “We’ll be keeping Jetline as a brand of Prime, and we see a lot of synergies moving forward between both organizations. We’ve been friendly competitors for many years, and there’s a lot of consistency in the way we run our companies.”

Those organizational consistencies were echoed by Levin, as well. “Both Prime and Jetline have a rich tradition of customer-driven innovation and delivering world class service and support,” said Levin. “Jetline’s success in the value-priced end of the market, combined with Prime’s reputation for excellence will certainly enhance the value proposition for our loyal customers. We’re proud to be part of the team.”

Ultimately, Lederer said Prime plans to capitalize on efficiencies from both companies, as they combine into a single organization. “Moving forward,” Lederer said, “we will unify the sales, marketing and product development teams and leverage the best of both organizations.”

Prime Line ranks number 21 on Counselor’s Top 40 list of suppliers, after reporting 2014 North American ad specialty sales of $71.4 million. It’s expected that the deal with Jetline should help Prime Line to exceed $100 million in annual revenues.