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convenience store,” said Dutton. “It’s very interesting because it’s a different market. It’s not a market we had the possibility to serve [previously] and that’s one of the reasons we decided to put an offer to TruServ.” Bill Morrison believes the marriage of TruServ and RONA will open up possibilities for dealer-members aligned with both groups, in part because of TruServ’s having a much stronger share of the rural market. “We hope the deal might allow us to serve many new RONA dealers with these types of products,” Morrison said. The deal presents both new product possibilities and a potential problem for many of the 400 independent TruServ dealers. TruServ supplies hardlines to many independents who are also aligned with buying groups that traditionally compete with RONA on the building supply side—Sexton, IRLY, Castle and TIM-BR MARTS. —FC
13. ALPA LUMBER GROUP Mississauga, Ont.
2010 Retail Sales: $585-million (est.) Points of sale: 19 WRLA PS 2012 - 1 - Hardware Merchandising.ai 1 6/21/2011
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As the Greater Toronto homebuilding industry goes, so goes Alpa Lumber, a group of 19 lumber and building materials supply outlets in the GTA (there is also one outlier in Ottawa—Grandor Lumber Inc.) whose customers comprise the bulk of the tract home builders there. This private company assiduously avoids the spotlight, especially with regard to its finances, so GTA housing numbers become a sort of proxi for Alpa Lumber’s story. In 2009, the GTA building market was suffering through the effects of the late 2008 housing market meltdown. Housing starts dropped to their lowest in decades and building permits were down from ’08 by almost 20 per cent. 2010 was better—but not by much. The first half of the year continued weak with new home starts at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 28,900 for the first six months, and by September, the numbers began to improve. The month of November finally saw a big improvement, with the number of starts rising to almost 51,000 that month, which pulled the 2010 starts past the 2009 figures. By the end of the year, dwelling starts in 2010 were 12 per cent higher than 2009. By extrapolation, it is probably fair to say Alpa enjoyed a similar improvement. Unfortunately, when asked for some expression of how Alpa faired in 2010 for this report, Orest Matkowsky, CFO of Alpa, would only say that Alpa is a private company and no information on any aspect of its operations
The Wild West at its Best 2012 Buying Show & Convention
January 19-20, 2012 Saskatoon, SK
www.wrla.org/prairieshowcase July/August 2011
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WRLA Inc. Email: ckelly@wrla.org or 800-661-0253 ext 3.
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