Saint-Gobain Sells Jewson with Distribution Brands

SAINT-GOBAIN has agreed to sell its UK merchanting brands – including the builders and timber merchant Jewson – to the Stark group.

Saint Gobain’s UK distribution businesses comprise 600 outlets employing 8,900 people. The sale is based on an enterprise value of £740 million.

The sale is expected to generate revenues of around €2.7 billion in 2022 with an operating margin of around 2%.

Saint-Gobain Sells Jewson

Saint-Gobain’s UK distribution companies were grouped as Saint-Gobain Building Distribution Limited (SGBD Ltd). SGBD Ltd comprises 14 brands including the  builders’ and timber merchant, Jewson. Other brands included in the sale are:

Jewson, Jewson Partnership Solutions, Build Aviator, the Local Merchant Group brands including Gibbs & Dandy, JP Corry and Normans, Contracts division (comprising Minster and Jewson Civils Frazer) and George Boyd.

Also included in the sale is International Timber, as the business is an important supplier of sustainable timber, including to SGBD.

SGBD Ltd generated revenues of £2.3 billion in 2021. This transaction is expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter 2023.

The Stark Group is a northern European based, global building materials distributor headquartered in Denmark.

Expecting to complete the transaction in the first quarter of 2023, it will mean that Saint-Gobain will no longer have any distribution businesses in the United Kingdom.

It follows the divestment of specialist distribution brands in the United Kingdom over the last 18 months, which were generating around €650 million of revenues, based on an enterprise value of around €200 million.

The distribution business sales are part of Saint-Gobain’s strategy to improve the Group’s growth and profitability in line with its ‘Grow & Impact’ plan.

Saint-Gobain designs, manufactures and distributes materials and services for the construction and industrial markets. It employs 166,000 people in 76 countries. In 2021, the group saw sales of €44.2 billion.

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