FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

America II Extends International Expansion to Latin America

GUADALAJARA September 20, 2000 - With its first global move made and proving strong, America II Electronics today announces the extension of its international expansion to Latin America. América II de México S. de R.L. de C.V., the distributor's newest international counterpart, opens for operation this month as an official declaration of America II Electronics' commitment to the Mexican marketplace within the global spectrum of the electronics industry.

"For years, we've been servicing the Mexican market with the help of our bilingual representatives working from the America II corporate campus and making field visits as necessary," reported America II Electronics President Jim Magee. "But," he adds, "with the response and size of our Mexican customer base growing steadily, we felt it was time to make a serious commitment to this segment of the market by opening an operation in their region."

Jorge Manzanera, former operations manager at the Latin American base of a global franchised distributor, has been appointed to the position of general manager for America II Electronics' Mexican venture. Since his appointment, Manzanera has focused on establishing operations for the Mexico office, building a team of administrative and sales professionals, and preparing for a series of open houses his office will host to further introduce América II de México to the Mexican market. Manzanera sees these initial activities as opportunities "to cultivate longstanding relationships between America II and its existing customers in the Mexican market, and to educate others within Mexico's rich electronics community who may not be familiar with America II's standards and model of business," he says.

"We're prepared for a similar adjustment period with the launch of América II de México as we experienced with the establishment of America II Europe," offers Magee. "The America II business model of an independent stocking distributor that serves as a strategic partner in sourcing, and in specialized programs such as excess inventory management and mature product marketing™, is more than most customers expect. While this model has come to be widely recognized in the North American segment of our industry, in the European and Mexican markets, where business models such as ours have not readily existed, educating the marketplace is key," he asserts.

And so the task begins for Manzanera and his team. As Manzanera shares, "America II's signature capability to stock and source mature, hard-to-find and allocated product will be very meaningful to the Mexican market. At the same time, the size of America II's worldwide sales team, its history of ISO 9002-certified quality, and its ability to work with customers in a variety of circumstances further communicate that América II de México is here to offer services to the Mexican market in a way that no one else can."

Jorge Manzanera, General Manager, América II de México

Jorge Manzanera joins América II de México this month as general manager. Manzanera most recently hails from the Latin American base of a global franchised distributor where he served as operations manager, overseeing all logistics and day-to-day functions from order processing and supplier visits to training and quality.

Early in his career, Manzanera gained sales experience as a representative of NCR Corporation and as sales and marketing manager for Sharp Electronics Mexico. Later, Manzanera joined Future Electronics as a marketing product specialist at the company's corporate headquarters in Montréal. As part of Future's West Coast/Asia support team, Manzanera provided real-time support by offering product knowledge and managing RFQs on active and passive components. From here, Manzanera moved to the position of branch sales analyst, working to increase the sales of Future's 100+ North American offices by conducting account reviews and statistical and sales reports.

Manzanera's background further encompasses international trade and marketing, acquired through field work completed in Germany and Mexico. Drawing on this experience, Manzanera founded Mexico International, an organization that united Canadian and Mexican entrepreneurs toward the advancement of technology transfer, job creation, and foreign investment in Mexico. Manzanera holds a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering from Mexico City's Metropolitan University and attained an MBA from Mexico National University.

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