Anixter has been nearly as persuasive with Wall Street as he is with his employees.
Anixter is simply doing what so many other businesspeople are doing these days: consolidating fragmented businesses.
The process starts with an on-site visit by Anixter and Daryl Spinell, who heads up sales.
Next, Anixter sits down in groups of four or five with the division chiefs.
Scott Anixter picks up companies the way Casanova once collected women -- sometimes two at a time.
It claims that Anixter was aware of the fraud and concealed it, and that Putnam and Welchko orchestrated it.
Anixter pleaded guilty to four lesser misdemeanor charges in exchange for his testimony against the nine other soybean traders.
"These guys understand their customers better than anyone in the industry, " says Anixter.
Anicom was created in 1993 by the Anixter family, founders of Anixter International, a similar distributor sold to Samuel Zell in 1986.
But unlike Casanova, Anixter has a knack for keeping his conquests happy.
Anixter Brothers, an electrical wholesale distributor built by his uncle and father, was sold to real estate mogul Sam Zell a decade ago.
While Anixter works the cafeteria, Spinell is talking up one of Anicom's basic businesses -- cables for security alarm systems -- to TW's sales force.
"We've been on the other side of an acquisition, " says Anixter.
Rejecting idleness, Anixter and his dad launched Anicom in 1993.
Scott Anixter, 51, Anicom's chief executive and chairman, hoped to polish his image after being charged in 1990 with 14 felony counts of fraud and five misdemeanor violations in a trading scam at the Chicago Board of Trade.
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