Ideas for your business. Inspiration for you.

Two days of presentations in scenic Whistler, B.C., featuring some of the world’s leading retail leaders. Plus networking with dealers and industry leaders from across Canada. The ideas and connections you’ll gain from this event will super-charge you and your business for years to come.

October 17 & 18, 2023

WHISTLER, BRITISH COLUMBIA hardlinesconference.ca

Dealers get a 30% discount on tickets. Contact michelle@hardlines.ca for the coupon code.

Series

Well, that was a great ride. After posting gains of 14.8 percent in 2020 and 7.9 percent in 2021, the Canadian home improvement retail industry plateaued in 2022. This was to be expected. The consumer frenzy for hardware and building supply products was dampened by multiple interest rate increases and declining commodity prices. Plus, the opening up of other places for customers to spend their money, as pandemic restrictions lifted, slowed sales.

Hardlines estimates our industry grew 4.6 percent to $61.135 billion, while the Consumer Price Index was up nationally 6.8 percent. So, the industry experienced a 2.2 percent decline in real terms, after inflation.

Still, the industry grew by 34.4 percent during Covid. In 2019, preCovid, Hardlines reported an industry size of $45.5 billion. Last year’s $61.135 billion was a tremendous feat. And this, in a year in which commodity prices tumbled. To give just one example, the mill price of Western Spruce-Pine-Fir 2x4 had traded at US$1,600 per thousand board feet in the spring of 2021. It was down to $360 per thousand board feet by early June 2023, according to the Canadian Forestry Service. The industry is still being impacted by commodity price declines. And this will likely continue throughout the rest of this year.

In the next 12 pages, Hardlines Home Improvement Quarterly brings you an analysis of the industry, the Top 20 players, and a recap of the major news events that played out.

1. THE HOME DEPOT CANADA

HQ: Toronto, Ont.

2022 RETAIL SALES: $12.070 billion

STORES: 182

Home Depot Canada is a division of The Home Depot, a U.S. company based in Atlanta. Overall sales reached US$157.4 billion last year, an increase of 4.1 percent over the previous year. The retailer had a total of 2,007 stores in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico at the end of fiscal 2022.

In Canada, Home Depot has 182 stores, a number that has remained unchanged for several years. However, the Canadian division continues to grow, staying firmly in place as number one in this year’s Hardlines

Top 20 listing.

Instead, growth comes from optimizing the output of existing stores, while investing heavily in online sales. This latter strategy took off during Covid, as it did for so many other retailers. An estimated 10 percent of Home Depot’s sales in Canada come through online transactions.

Home Depot operates 11 distribution centres in Canada. They represent a combination of bulk facilities, direct fulfilment centres, and “stock and flow” campuses. For its core replenishment DCs, Home Depot Canada has leveraged the U.S. Rapid Deployment Centre model and adapted it to Canada with its two largest facilities, in Vaughan, Ont., and Calgary, Alta., serving as “stock and flow” depots.

Near the end of 2020, Home Depot announced the acquisition of HD Supply Holdings, Inc., a distributor of maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) products. Our calculations of Home Depot Canada’s sales do not include HD Supply.

The big box retailer’s customer focus remains fixed on both the homeowner and the contractor. During Covid, when many specialty stores, including home décor outlets, were not deemed “essential” and had to remain closed, Home Depot used this as an opportunity to expand its soft lines, adding more home décor SKUs to its stores and online assortments. The retailer has been pushing its assortments from more traditional looks to become more style conscious.

At the same time, growing sales to the pro customer remains an ongoing strategy. Overall, the Home Depot organization reports that four percent of its customers are pros, but they account for almost half of all sales. Part of that strategy includes getting product deliveries to jobsites as quickly as possible with same-day deliveries in some major markets. Other nods to pros include designated parking, special carts for pros, enhanced online options for tracking orders, and “fast lane” checkouts.

To support workers in its stores, Home Depot Canada has turned to more technology. Its associates have been armed with “HdPhones” to keep them in touch with inventory levels and each other. An app called Sidekick was added to the devices that guides associates to prioritize the highest demand product, which shelf to restock, and the location of the excess product on overhead shelves.

2. HOME HARDWARE STORES

HQ: St. Jacobs, Ont.

2022 RETAIL SALES: $9.376 billion

STORES: 1,046

Home Hardware Stores Limited continues to experience steady growth yearover-year, as it invests in its operations and retail execution at store level among its existing member dealers, and actively recruits new members. The company has three distribution centres across the country: Debert, N.S.; St. Jacobs, Ont.; and Wetaskiwin, Alta. It also has a paint and chemicals manufacturing and distribution facility in Burford, Ont.

The company goes to market with four distinct retail formats. Hardware stores flying the Home Hardware banner are typical hardware and housewares stores, often serving as the “general store” for a local community. Two banners represent the company’s building supply stores: home centres (Home Hardware Building Centre) and building centres (Home Building Centre). Home also has a handful of Home Furniture stores across Canada. While some are standalone, the majority are part of a Home Hardware Building Centre.

Historically, Home has operated as a wholesaler supplying its member-dealers. Those members have been the focus, the customer within the organization. Under president and CEO Kevin Macnab, Home Hardware has made a tangible shift in corporate direction. Macnab, who will celebrate his fifth anniversary with Home Hardware this fall, is the first president to come from outside the company. Home Hardware has embraced a cultural shift to become a “retail company” rather than a wholesaler. The focus now is on the retail end-user as the target customer.

In his efforts to update the company, Macnab insists on keeping the dealer-owner at the forefront. The transformation the company is undergoing can be done, he says, effectively within the dealer-owned model that preserves the strong corporate culture that makes Home Hardware unique.

Home Hardware has been refining its focus on contractors and trades in recent years. A program called Home Hardware PRO was rolled out in 2020. It includes more emphasis on heavy duty power tool lines, such as the launch of Cat power tools, part of a move to help Home Hardware dealers compete more effectively for the pro dollar. Since 2017, Home has been actively pursuing the maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) sector.

A major trend among large retailers is the expansion of private labels and house brands, and Home Hardware is no exception. Its signature Benchmark tool brand got a boost at the end of 2021 when it was relaunched as part of a big promotional and advertising push.

3. LOWE’S CANADA/RONA INC.

HQ: Boucherville, Que.

2022 RETAIL SALES: $8.857 billion

STORES: 445

Lowe’s Canada, once part of an international strategy of expansion by parent Lowe’s Cos. in Mooresville, N.C., was always an outlier. In the U.S., all its stores are traditional big boxes, while in Canada, Lowe’s— since it bought RONA in 2016—had taken on a range of formats, from local hardware stores and building centres on up to big box stores. Not only that, part of that business, to its independent dealers, is wholesale.

Towards the end of Covid, the volume of lumber and building materials sold through the Canadian operations were subject to price deflation. Lowe’s Canadian operations were always more heavily reliant on LBM than was common in Lowe’s product mix south of the border. This was one of many reasons head office decided to sell off its Canadian operations.

On Feb. 3, 2023, Lowe’s Canada business was acquired by a New York City-based private equity firm, Sycamore Partners. All of Lowe’s Canada’s retail brands, consisting of RONA, Lowe’s, Réno-Dépôt, and Dick’s Lumber, are now owned by Sycamore.

The deal returns RONA to its roots as a private company for the first time since it went public in 2002. Sycamore, which owns other major retail brands such as Loft/Ann Taylor, Nine West, Talbots, Aeropostale, and Staples, has the means to make significant investments in its newest Canadian home improvement brands.

RONA maintains its head office in Boucherville, Que., on the South Shore of Montreal, and will continue to operate and service a network of some 445 corporate and affiliated dealer stores across Canada.

In the RONA network, 61 of its stores were Lowe’s, and they represent an estimated 30 percent of the RONA inc. sales. RONA announced in late June that the former Lowe’s stores will be converted to a new banner, called RONA +, commencing at the end of July. Just prior to that announcement, RONA appointed a new CEO, Andrew Iacobucci, who came over from Illinois-based US Foods. Iacobucci is a former Loblaw Cos. executive.

RONA is investing in its installed sales program, and has been actively onboarding more installers. To attract pros to its already large network, RONA has implemented a new customer relations management system to better qualify homeowners and provide quality leads to pros. The retailer has also invested more than $2.4 million to redesign its stores’ signage to generate demand for installers.

RONA is doing more in its stores to drive the sale, which includes tapping the company’s online assortment. It offers 300,000 SKUs not normally available in stores. Its chief competitor, Home Depot, boasts more than a million products online.

NOTE:Theplacementofthegroupsinthischartdoesnotintendto ranktheminanyway,butmerelytoshowhowtheyarerelated.

4. CANADIAN TIRE

HQ: Toronto, Ont.

2022 RETAIL SALES: $8.081 billion*

STORES: 505

* hardware and home improvement only

Canadian Tire Corp. is a true Canadian retail success story, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2022. The company got its start in 1922, when two brothers, John William Billes and Alfred Jackson Billes, bought a tire reseller in Toronto called Hamilton Tire and Garage Ltd. Overall revenue from all sources in 2022 reached $17.81 billion.

Canadian Tire’s Retail group includes its Canadian Tire-branded stores as well as Marks, Helly Hansen, PartSource, Petroleum, and Party City. It also has a financial services division and a real estate division to manage its properties. (*NOTE: Hardlines estimates here are for Canadian Tire Retail’s allied sales in hardware, housewares, and home improvement, excluding sporting goods, apparel, and automotive services.)

These stores are independently operated and co-owned by Canadian Tire’s franchise, or associate, dealers. The dealers own the fixtures, equipment, and inventory while head office owns the real estate. Retail selling space ranges in size from 3,200 square feet to 134,000 square feet, equalling more than 21 million square feet of retail across 505 Canadian Tire stores.

Canadian Tire says it has benefited from an “improved omnichannel experience” that spans all of its retail banners and is served by a rewards program called Triangle Loyalty that has evolved out of the paper Canadian Tire “money.” The company reported that it has 11.3 million active members in the program and loyalty penetration came close to 60 percent in 2022.

As customers have cut back on discretionary spending, Canadian Tire has seen a rise in its essential mixes. One category that is getting a big push is pet food and supplies through its dedicated PetCo store-withina-store concept.

CTC will invest $3.4 billion over the next four years, “to deliver an improved omnichannel customer experience.” The plan encompasses increased private labels, which it Canadian Tire calls its “owned brands portfolio.” These are regarded as a key differentiator for the retailer’s online presence as well as a margin builder for its associate dealers. The goal is to get the mix of private brands up past 43 percent by scaling up existing owned brands and introducing new products. The retailer anticipates launching over 12,000 new private-label products across all banners by 2025.

The company has also introduced a premium member service called Triangle Select, designed to go up against Amazon Prime. For an annual fee, customers get priority shipping and special discounts.

With more than 500 Canadian Tire Retail stores, the company is not adding additional locations. It will update or relocate existing sites, however. Part of the retail refurbishment involves a concept called “Remarkable Retail,” a store format that exceeds 100,000 square feet. Two such stores were opened in 2022, one in Ottawa (136,000 square feet) and the other in Welland, Ont. (120,000 square feet). The company has a third giant location in the works, in Calgary, which is slated to open in 2025.

5. INDEPENDENT LUMBER DEALERS CO-OPERATIVE

HQ: Ajax, Ont.

2022 RETAIL SALES: $4.644 billion

STORES: 482

Celebrating its 60th anniversary next year, the Independent Lumber Dealers Co-operative conducts purchasing negotiations for building materials on behalf of some of the largest independently-owned building supply yards in the country, many of them regional chains. There are 21 retail banners in the ILDC, which include such major chains as Kent Building Supplies of Saint John, N.B. (see separate listing at #11), Copp’s Building Materials of London, Ont., and McMunn & Yates of Dauphin, Man.

In addition, ILDC includes in its membership two other massive buying groups: Federated Co-operatives (see separate listing at #15) and BMR (see separate listing at #9). All told, ILDC represents more than 500 stores when it sits down with vendors. It is a member of the hardlines buying group Spancan.

7. SEXTON GROUP

HQ: Winnipeg, Man.

2022 RETAIL SALES: $3.643 billion

STORES: 387 ordering in a few truckloads of lumber.

Sexton Group, once a regional buying group that operated mostly in Western Canada, has long since transformed itself into a national player. It continued to sign new members in 2022. But the big news last year for the Sexton Family of Companies was the sale of a majority share of the organization to a group led by PFM Capital Inc., a Regina-based private equity management firm. The move positions the four companies that comprise the Sexton family business for the future.

Marshall got together with a few southern Ontario LBM entrepreneurs to form BOLD in 1963 and within a year they had 20 dealers. The group would change its name to Castle in 1982. Since that time, Castle has grown impressively. It has continued to add dealers over the past year. They include twounit Hodgins Lumber, based in Wingham, Ont.; Brudenell Building Centre in Montague, P.E.I.; Urban Insulation Supply of Casselman, Ont. (which has joined Castle’s Commercial Building Supply division, in business since 2007); and Maderas, a building centre in Rouyn-Noranda, Que., among others.

6. TIMBER MART

HQ: Calgary, Alta.

2022 RETAIL SALES: $4.362 billion

STORES: 603

Once a buying group concentrated in western Canada, TIMBER MART has come a long way since it set out on its journey to be a truly national presence a quarter century ago. Its secret back then was to end its former Matreco umbrella buying group alliance (with Homecare in Ontario, BMR in Quebec, and AWARD in Atlantic Canada) and form a unified organization with Homecare and AWARD—with BMR going its own way.

Fast forward 25 years and TIMBER

MART is making inroads in Quebec, signing new dealers recently, including Aluminium

B. Bouchard in the Greater Montreal Area and ML Produits de Bâtiment in MontLaurier. TIMBER MART’s distribution centre in St-Nicolas, Que., is clearly paying dividends. TIMBER MART claims to be the largest buying group in terms of gypsum supply purchases in Canada.

In addition to Sexton Group, industry legend Ken Sexton, who died in 2019, started Kenroc Building Materials—a multi-outlet GSD dealer—in 1967, as well as Builders Choice Products and Pan-Brick. At the beginning of this year, Eric Palmer was named president of the buying group. He was formerly the group’s VP and GM.

9. BMR GROUP

HQ: Boucherville, Que.

2022 RETAIL SALES: $1.574 billion

STORES: 275

8. CASTLE BUILDING CENTRES

HQ: Mississauga, Ont.

2022 RETAIL SALES: $1.971-billion

STORES: 293

Castle is marking 60 years in business this year. The “no frills” buying group got its start as BOLD Lumber (“Buying Organization of Lumber Dealers”), spearheaded by Newmarket, Ont., lumber dealer Larry Marshall, who got his start buying a tiny piece of land north of Toronto and

An ILDC member, BMR Group is the retail division of Sollio Cooperative Group, Quebec’s agricultural powerhouse formerly known at La Coop fédérée. BMR describes itself as the largest wholly Quebec-owned home improvement retailer. But it’s also a wholesaler with its own distribution facilities in Quebec. It boasts a 350,000-squarefoot hardware warehouse in Boucherville as well as three LBM DCs comprising 170,000 square feet in Longueuil, Quebec City, and Jonquière.

The standalone BMR brand covers home centres catering to the general DIY customer with a mix of hardware and building materials. Complementing it are the BMR Express proximity stores, contractor-oriented BMR Pro, and large-format BMR Extra. Agrizone stores serve a farm and ranch customer base.

“When the co-op bought BMR in 2013, the main target was to diversify the co-op,”

•

• was winding its way through the regulatory approval process.

Sollio CEO Pascal Houle explained at its annual general meeting this year. BMR fulfilled that function admirably last year, with its best showing in 55 years, mitigating a challenging year for Sollio’s agricultural business.

BMR has made changes to its organizational structure, including the departments of finance, operations, and supply chain. BMR has identified Ontario as a key target for expansion beyond its existing 20 stores there.

10. CANAC

HQ: Quebec City, Que.

2022 RETAIL SALES: $1.400 billion

STORES: 32

Formerly Canac-Marquis Grenier, this major player in Quebec is owned by the Laberge family. It follows a low-price model. Of Canac’s 32 building supply outlets, 14 are in the Quebec City area, as is one of its distribution centres. The other DC is in Drummondville.

Canac’s everyday low pricing strategy is particularly aggressive when it comes to commodities. But the retailer offers a full home centre assortment running the gamut from hardware, plumbing and electrical, and paint to floor coverings and seasonal products.

Canac began 2023 with the opening of a store in Contrecœur, an hour east of Montreal. The 43,000-square-foot retail outlet is paired with a 31,000-square-foot warehouse. Canac also has stores in the works in Rivière-du-Loup, where construction will begin on access roads and services this year, and Sorel-Tracy, where the retailer’s 34th location is expected to open in 2024. As HHIQ was going to press, a store in Magog, in Quebec’s Eastern Townships,

11. KENT BUILDING MATERIALS

HQ: Saint John, N.B.

2022 RETAIL SALES: $1.188 billion

STORES: 48

Part of the J.D. Irving empire which dominates Atlantic Canada, Kent is famously secretive about its business affairs. It’s the only Canadian retailer other than RONA Inc. to go to market with both multi-format big box and traditional building supply stores. It also has three truss plants and a drywall facility. It last opened a store in March 2022, when it added a Moncton, N.B. big box—its 10th—to its roster. Last fall, Kent signed a letter of intent with the town of Bay Roberts, N.L. to open a store there—if another anchor can be found for a planned new shopping centre.

In November 2022, the Federal Court of Canada gave the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) the green light to comb through the records of Kent Building Supplies’ pro and commercial customers, looking for tax cheats. Kent was required to forward to the CRA the name and contact information of all Kent Pro customers who had spent more than $20,000 annually in its stores.

Building Supplies in Ontario, Shoemaker Drywall Supplies on the Prairies, and Beauchesne Group in Quebec. The group grew to become one of the giant GSD buying entities in Canada. In 2018, publicly-traded GMS Inc. of Tucker, Ga., acquired WSB Titan, and the Canadian firm became known as GMS Canada. The connection with Watson Building Supplies was firmed up in 2022 when Paul Green, former president of Watson, was named president of GMS Canada, replacing Travis Hendren, who moved back to the U.S. as COO of GMS Inc. This spring, GMS Canada acquired Blair Building Materials in Maple, Ont., and Home Lumber and Building Supplies in Victoria, B.C.

12. GMS CANADA/WSB TITAN

HQ: Surrey, B.C.

2021 SALES: $1.054 billion

STORES: 32

WSB Titan was formed in 2009 by three large gypsum supply dealers: Watson

13. DELROC INDUSTRIES

HQ: Langley, B.C.

2022 RETAIL SALES: $968 million

STORES: 136

With some 33 members operating 136 locations, Delroc is a privately-owned buying group founded by entrepreneur Bruno Mauro of Dryco Building Supplies in Langley, B.C. Delroc will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year. Its members are mostly GSDs, but it also has full-scale building supply dealers—the largest of which is Windsor Plywood (see separate listing, #20).

Delroc is strongest in its home province of British Columbia, where it has 69 locations, followed by Alberta with 27. It has 19 outlets in Ontario and four in Atlantic Canada. It negotiates in a wide range of building material categories. Other than gypsum, its strengths are in engineered wood, lumber, plywood, hardware, flooring, aluminum railings, caulking, concrete products, hardscapes, fasteners, insulation, mouldings, paint, roofing, siding, steel framing, windows, and allied products.

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14. TORBSA/AD CANADA

HQ: Mississauga, Ont.

2022 RETAIL SALES: $786 million

STORES: 45

Affiliated Distributors Canada’s building supplies division represents the dealer group that is number 14 in our Top 20. Before last summer, the group went under the TORBSA name. That buying group had represented a small group of dealers operating mainly in Ontario, with one exception—its largest member, Crown Building Supplies, based in Surrey, B.C. Those members represent a mix of traditional building centres and dealers that focus on commodities.

AD established itself in this country in 2021 as a business unit of its parent company, AD, based in Wayne, Penn. AD is a buying group with almost 900 members that is heavily into all manner of industrial, commercial, and institutional products, which lie outside of Hardlines’ definition of the retail home improvement industry. TORBSA is now called AD Building Supplies - Canada Division.

Torbsa Is Now Part Of A Giant North American Group

Since 1966, TORBSA flourished as a buying group for a small, cohesive collection of building materials dealers and commercial yards. It was a compact but well established group that prided itself on the camaraderie among its members.

TORBSA made a dramatic move in July 2022, merging into another buying group, AD Canada (Affiliated Distributors), a contractor and wholesale buying group. Under the merger, a new division was created within the larger group: AD Canada – Building Supplies. Paul Williams, who had been president of TORBSA, moved over to head the division, reporting to AD Canada president Rob Dewar. The group touts itself as the largest contractor and industrial products wholesale buying group in North America. It provides independent ICI dealers and manufacturers with products and services.

Sales by owner-members in 2022 reached, a 28 percent increase from the previous year. AD’s member community comprises 866 separately owned independents across 14 divisions and three countries, representing US$74.9 billion in sales in 2022.

Today, AD Canada consists of four divisions: plumbing and heating, electrical, industrial and safety, and building supplies. The company says continued growth in both new and existing markets is a cornerstone of its vision. In April, Senso Group Building Supplies in York, Ont., became the newest member to join AD Canada.

15. FEDERATED CO-OPERATIVES

HQ: Saskatoon, Sask.

2022 RETAIL SALES: $560 million

STORES: 91

One of of the country’s largest farm co-ops, and the 60th largest co-op in the world, Federated Co-operatives reported sales by its members of $12.5 billion in

2022—a 38 percent increase on 2021. On the retail side, it supplies member co-ops throughout Western Canada that have ag centres, supermarkets, convenience stores, department stores, and hardware, building supply, and home centre stores. This last category is serviced by FCL’s Home and Building Solutions (HABS) business. The HABS stores have been undergoing a gradual and ongoing revamp, which includes expanding the back end with more drivethrough options, a nod to their growing contractor customer base. To further support growth of its HABS business, FCL has erected a new LBM distribution hub near Regina to service more than 60 HABS stores in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. It has been operational since January 2022.

17. UNITED FARMERS OF ALBERTA CO-OPERATIVE

HQ: Calgary, Alta.

2022 Retail Sales: $445 million

Stores: 34 of which are corporately owned and which maintain their own banner.

UFA is a co-operative meeting the needs of more than 120,000 member-owners throughout Alberta, with a handful of locations in British Columbia and, increasingly, Saskatchewan. In Alberta, the co-op has 34 hardware stores under the UFA Farm and Ranch Supply banner. These are often twinned with cardlock locations (fleet fuel depots). UFA is a significant player in the home improvement industry in its region, buying lumber and building supplies through Sexton Group.

The Quebec-based company is looking to nearly double its store count over the next 10 years and has $25 million earmarked for investment in that growth. Two new stores are already in the works for this year, the first in Brossard this summer and another later in the year in Blainville. Buying other independent dealers also figures in Patrick Morin’s expansion plans.

The Brossard store “will be our first store on the south shore of Montreal,” president and CEO Daniel Lampron told Hardlines in an interview in January. That location will feature a new look for the chain, and a novel size at about 95,000 square feet. The 37,000 square-foot selling space is comparable to other Patrick Morin stores, but the Brossard outlet will also boast 20,000 square feet for a drive-through lumber section, plus additional space for storage.

16. PEAVEY INDUSTRIES

HQ: Red Deer, Alta.

2022 RETAIL SALES: $496 million

STORES: 92

Peavey Industries operates more than 90 farm and ranch stores across Canada under the Peavey Mart brand, having incorporated the TSC stores in Ontario it acquired in 2017. Peavey is also the licensee of the Ace Hardware brand in Canada, which it took over in 2020 from Lowe’s Canada. There are some 100 Ace-branded stores in Canada. Peavey also does business under the MainStreet Hardware banner, a convenience hardware format for the downtown cores of small communities.

Peavey is buying up, on a selective basis, independents who want to cash out, turning the stores into corporate locations. Peavey has a relationship with Sexton to provide that LBM group’s members with the Ace banner and hardware assortments, while Sexton reciprocates with LBM buys for Ace building centre dealers in Canada.

Earlier this year, UFA launched an expanded e-commerce platform—partnering with Mirakl, a technology provider— called MarketPLACE. It offers ship-to-store or ship-to-home options, with vendors controlling their online assortments. UFA sees MarketPLACE as a way to extend its geographic reach with online sales from British Columbia to Manitoba.

19. FOUNDATION BUILDING MATERIALS (WINROC)

HQ: Calgary, Alta.

2022 RETAIL SALES: $411 million

STORES: 27

18. PATRICK MORIN

HQ: Saint-Paul, Que.

2022 RETAIL SALES: $415 million

STORES: 21

Patrick Morin was a member of ILDC until February 2021, when it was bought by seven-store Groupe Turcotte, in partnership with Home Hardware Stores Ltd. At the end of 2022, Patrick Morin had 21 stores, all

Foundation Building Materials (FBM) is a U.S.-based group of GSDs with over 270 locations across the U.S. and Canada. It’s one of the largest wallboard distributors in North America, as well as a leading commercial and industrial insulation materials distributor. FBM currently operates 27 Canadian locations: eight in B.C., seven in Alberta, two in Saskatchewan, one in Manitoba, and nine in Ontario.

FBM Inc. purchased its first Canadian outlets, then branded as Winroc, from Superior Plus LLC., a publicly-traded Toronto-based chemical firm, in 2016.