The story
Founding and early years
Belden was founded in Chicago, Illinois, in 1902 by Joseph C. Belden as the Belden Manufacturing Company. A former purchasing agent for the Kellogg Switchboard & Supply Company, Belden started the company to produce the high-quality silk-wrapped magnet wire used in telephone switchboard coils. In 1910 the company introduced an enamel wire insulation marketed as "Beldenamel," which became an industry standard. Over the following decades Belden expanded into electrical wiring, cable, and signal-transmission products used in radio broadcasting, television, industrial automation, and computer networking.
Cooper Industries and 1993 spin-off
In 1980 Belden was acquired by the Crouse-Hinds Company, which was itself acquired by Cooper Industries in 1981, making Belden a division of Cooper Industries. In 1993 Belden was spun off as an independent, publicly traded company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, with corporate headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri.
Merger with Cable Design Technologies
In 2004 Belden merged with the Cable Design Technologies Corporation (CDT) to form Belden CDT Inc., which later resumed the name Belden Inc. In 2005, John Stroup was appointed president and chief executive officer. Under Stroup, Belden pursued a series of acquisitions in industrial networking, broadband, cybersecurity, and connectivity, expanding beyond its traditional wire-and-cable business.
Acquisitions during this period included Hirschmann and Lumberg Automation (2007), Telecast Fiber Systems (2009), GarrettCom (2010), Byres Security and Poliron (2011), Miranda Technologies and PPC (2012), and OTN Systems (2021).
Recent developments
In February 2023, Belden appointed Ashish Chand as president and chief executive officer. In April 2023, as part of a community program, Belden donated $100,000 to the Richmond Fire Department in Richmond, Indiana, to fund firefighting equipment upgrades.
For the 2024 fiscal year, Belden reported revenues of approximately $2.46 billion and net income of $198.4 million. The company reported record revenues of about $2.72 billion for the 2025 fiscal year.
On July 1, 2026, Belden completed its acquisition of RUCKUS Networks from Vistance Networks in a cash transaction valued at approximately $1.87 billion, net of cash acquired. The deal, funded in part by a $1.85 billion senior secured term loan, added enterprise Wi-Fi, Ethernet switching, and AI-driven network-management platforms to Belden's portfolio, which the company said strengthened its position as a provider of end-to-end information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) networking solutions.
From Wikipedia’s article on Belden Incorporated, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5