A Less-is-More Footprint for Re-loaded Stock Building Supply
Click to access Stock site. Now 51% owned by the Gores Group, a private equity firm.
Financially chastened and dramatically cropped, Stock Building Supply beat a fast track–a la the Chrysler 60-days-and-out restructuring model–under new majority ownership toward resuscitation and reincarnation.
ProSales editor Craig Webb reports this morning on Stock’s announced emergence out of Chapter 11 a leaner meaner outfit that will operate 100 locations in 19 markets.
The bullet points on the story:
- Stock has emerged from Chapter 11, saying it had satisfied concerns raised in court during its nearly two months under federal bankruptcy-law protection;
- The company’s new footprint: Washington, D.C., area; Paradise, Pa.; Richmond, Va.; Raleigh-Durham, Charlotte and Winston-Salem/Greensboro, N.C.; Greenville and Columbia, S.C.; Atlanta; Austin, Amarillo, Houston, Lubbock and San Antonio, Texas; Albuquerque, N.M.; Salt Lake City and Southern Utah; Spokane/Northern Idaho, and Los Angeles;
- Stock cut the number of facilities it had on May 6 roughly in half, to 100, and has departed 32 markets;
- Employee headcount peaked at 17,000, and fell to 7,200 in May 2009, on its way toward staffing of about 5,000, per the company.
Stock’s strategic overhaul sounds as if the company wants to leverage its relationships with builders and remodelers toward a deeper, more holistic supply partnership, a plan that makes sense particularly as home builders work to streamline vendor rosters toward measurable cost cuts in their offerings, which translate into lower home prices that can compete with foreclosures.
It said it will do this by seeking to sell a larger number of products to each customer, rather than just one or two core offerings. For example, Stock said it will roll out what it described as a tracking system that will give customers real-time ability to track the location and expected delivery time for their orders.
Any relationship between Stock minority parent Wolseley Plc’s CEO shake-up yesterday, and the timing of Stock’s surfacing from BK today? [see yesterday's post].
Not really, says ProSales Webb. Wolseley removed outgoing CEO Chip Hornsby because the company needed someone to take a fall commensurate with the 75% loss in shareholder value that had occurred on his watch.
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