Industry consolidation in the U.S. is not a new trend, but one that tends to accompany positive economic conditions and a healthy stock market. Over the past several years, consolidation has touched every sizeable domestic industry, helped in large part by strategic acquirers’ healthy balance sheets and private equity and hedge funds that have been able to tap increasingly large pools of institutional capital. During this heady period of M&A activity, the EMS industry experienced its fair share of consolidation. However, the activity was relegated primarily to the middle and lower-middle markets; albeit the recent acquisition of Solectron by Flextronics International and Benchmark Electronics’ acquisition of Pemstar shows there is still some room for Tier I and II providers to make transformational acquisitions. Nevertheless, long gone are the days when these companies made two to five, and in some cases more, needle-moving acquisitions a year.