Pendar

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History

Pendar's origins are unclear. Pendar, Inc. in the US was three years old in 1966, when it was acquired by C. P. Clare & Co. and renamed Clare-Pendar.

Pendar also operated in France. A company called Pendar Electronic is reported to have been created in 1977 by American company Clare Electronic. In 1991, the company went into receivership, and was bought by Cedi Sécurité SA, with 56 of the 135 staff retained. Business was to be refocused on computer keyboards, push buttons and SPDs for France-Telecom. <ref name="Les-Echos"/> An Entreprise F8909 document from 2001-03-19 lists CEDI INDUSTRIE SA and PENDAR INDUSTRIE SA as former names of the company. The document itself belongs to "EUROPEAN SWITCHES MANUFACTURING (ESM)" and suggests the date that CEDI Industries became ESM, but this is by no means certain as the document is very vague. The branding on switches never changed, remaining "PENDAR".

An ESM employee listed her employment history with the company as follows: CP Clare, Clare Electronic, Pendar Électronique, Pendar Industrie, Cedi Industrie at Proville and ESM at Élincourt.<ref name="ESM-co" /> All the companies cited had premises in France.

In October 2015, ESM themselves became bankrupt.<ref name="EM-ESM" />

Products

Pendar in France and Clare in Belgium manufactured the same keyboard switches under their own names, sharing the same part numbers. These switches are referred to as "Clare/Pendar", although there are also products branded "Clare/Pendar" presumed to have come from Clare-Pendar.

• Clare/Pendar switches

Gallery

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  Newspaper clipping 1966-05-11 covering the take-over
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  Selection of switches at ESM ostensibly in 2003

ESM factory

ESM provided these photographs of their factory in June 2015, shortly before they went out of business in October of the same year; the photographs themselves are from 2002 according to the EXIF data, but this is not confirmed, as the final image shows a 2004 calendar. Included in the photographs is a depiction of Clare/Pendar low profile reed switches apparently being assembled.

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Documentation

• ESM Entreprise F8909 document from 2001-03-19

References

<references> <ref name="Les-Echos">Les Echos.fr — Pendar Electronic repris par Cedi Sécurité (1991-08-20)</ref> <ref name="EM-ESM">Electromechcomp — Pendar ESM Products</ref> <ref name="ESM-co">Correspondence with ESM employee, 2015-06-17</ref> </references>