Who Owns Farnell?

Farnell Electronic Components was founded in London in 1939 by Alan Farnell and Arthur Woffenden, initially supplying radio parts to the British electronics trade. The business grew through the postwar electronics expansion into a catalog distributor, mailing thick component catalogs to engineers across the UK and later Europe.

The company listed on the London Stock Exchange and grew through acquisitions into Premier Farnell plc, adding the Newark brand in the United States in 1968 through an acquisition that made it a transatlantic business, and building operations across Europe and Asia. In 2009 it launched element14, the online engineering community and storefront that became its global digital identity, and it was an early e-commerce mover in an industry still reliant on printed catalogs.

By the mid-2010s Premier Farnell was one of the world's largest high-service distributors, serving more than a million customers. In 2016 Avnet agreed to buy the company for approximately $900 million, completing the deal that October and delisting it from London. The acquisition gave Avnet an e-commerce distribution engine and the element14 developer community, which Avnet later complemented with the Hackster.io platform.

Under Avnet, Farnell weathered the 2023-2025 semiconductor downturn and returned to year-over-year sales and margin growth by the fourth quarter of FY2025, a recovery its parent flagged as a leading indicator for the business.