December 30, 2022
5 Things to Know: Week Ending December 31
LSI outpaces Kroger and Procter & Gamble. Agent updates amidst reshuffling Chicago market.
Here's a roundup of some of the week's happenings curated to help lighting people stay informed.
1. Seven weeks, and no big Force Partners announcements
On November 11, Chicago lighting agent Force Partners sent a memo to its customers announcing that the agency and Cooper Lighting Solutions had "jointly decided" to end its six-year partnership. In that same memo, Force Partners stated that "both companies will be announcing their future plans in the coming days and weeks." Cooper Lighting's recently announced plans made quite a stir, but we've yet to hear any big news out of Force Partners. Their Cooper Lighting representation ends on Saturday, December 31.
THREE OBSERVATIONS FROM THE inside.lighting I-TEAM:
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Since the November 11 Cooper announcement, the agency headcount (according to its website) has held steady at 33 people. We imagine some of those people might be recruited by the new Cooper agency, The Lighting Digest, whose Cooper representation begins on January 15.
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Force Partners has quietly added two manufacturers to its published line card in recent weeks: Lee Broom and SWFcontract. Neither line is expected to fill the impending multi-million dollar void of Cooper Lighting Solutions.
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Force Partners has removed one of the two office addresses cited on its website. The Westmont, Illinois office location address has vanished. The Wacker Drive, Chicago office address remains.
Force Partners executives did not reply to our multiple inquiries about their promised announcements or future plans.
2. Chicago Lighting Agent Teases Exciting Announcements
On December 14, Chicagoland lighting agent A&M officially expired the legal business name, Archibald & Meek, Inc. transitioning to A+M LC, Inc. Since then, the agency has also posted a 13-second teaser video on LinkedIn that previews a new logo and messaging that includes “New year, new us” and “Big Things are Coming in 2023.” A&M is best known locally for being the Lutron agent.
It’s very possible that the agency is simply going through a corporate rebranding and renaming (as the original “M”, Richard Meek, left the business a few years ago – resulting in some messy litigation with remaining agent principal, Joe Archibald.) A different “M”, John Marcheschi, is believed to be a minority partner in the agency, allowing the A+M moniker to continue albeit with a new disco purple brand color.
If a 13-second lighting agent teaser video was recently published in any other market we might scroll right past it and move on with our lives. But with the Chicago C&I lighting market experiencing some major reshuffling and realignment, it makes us wonder if the “Big Things” A+M promised are foreshadowing some other possible big agency announcements related to lighting lines, personnel or potential mergers.
3. Signify Sues Five Nevada Lighting Companies
After making online purchases of various products from LEPRO Innovation Inc, LE Innovation Inc, Innovation Rules Inc., Home Ever Inc., and Letianlighting, Inc., Signify believes that each company is violating its intellectual property (IP) and is suing all five companies for patent infringement according to a recently filed lawsuit.
It is unusual for IP lawsuits to name multiple defendant companies in the same complaint, but Signify alleges that some of the officers of the various companies are connected through family relationships: Taiming Xu, Litao Xu, Maosheng Wu, Ji Wu, Tianying Li, Xiang Li.
Signify is seeking a judgment that defendants have infringed the patents and is asking the court to issue a permanent injunction against the defendants. Furthermore, Signify is seeking an award of damages adequate to compensate Signify for the alleged patent infringement, and an accounting to adequately compensate Signify for the alleged infringement, including lost profits or a reasonable royalty.
4. LSI Industries is this year's #1 growth stock among Cincinnati companies
Nov 2022: LSI Industries CEO, Jim Clark, discusses company culture and growth with Al Uszynski of inside.lighting
The Cincinnati Business Courier has published its annual list of best and worst performing stocks of Cincinnati-area publicly traded companies. Commercial lighting maker LSI Industries (Nasdaq: LYTS) led the way with a whopping 76% gain this year. According to the article, LSI generated nearly all of its increase since the end of October, and it did that the old-fashioned way: generating strong results.
LSI posted fiscal first-quarter earnings in early November that beat analysts’ estimates. Not only that, profits doubled, sales rose 19%, margins reached the highest level in a decade and orders outpaced growth rates. In short, LSI is firing on all cylinders and the market recognized it.
Below is the truncated list from the Cincinnati Business Courier. Procter & Gamble (-7.2%) finished eleventh on the list.
- LSI Industries, +76.1%
- Meridian Bioscience, +63%
- Cintas, +4.8%
- Cincinnati Bancorp, +1.8%
- American Financial, -0.35%
- First Financial Bancorp, -0.37%
- Kroger, -1.8%
- Chemed, -2.8%
- Medpace, -3.2%
- Phillips Edison, -3.9%
More from Cincinnati Business Courier (paywall) »
5. Extensive Light + Health Research: Free Download through January 3
Lighting industry thought leader, Kevin Houser, PhD, is among the authors of the recently-published book titled Melanopsin Vision, which provides a broad but detailed survey of ipRGC mediated light responses, integrating knowledge and perspectives from multiple fields.
The book is a useful reference for lighting people who connect the relationship among light, biology and health. It is available as a FREE download through January 3.
