Hammond Lumber of Belgrade, Maine, the No. 36 company on the ProSales 100, announced today it has acquired EBS Building Supplies of Ellsworth, Maine, the 80th-biggest company on the PS100 list. The deal enhances Hammond's status as the biggest dealer in the Pine State, raising it to 21 locations and more than 800 employees.
Now in its 65h year, Hammond has roughly 500 employees. It posted $163 million in sales last year, 95% of it to pros. EBS, founded in 1959, posted $80.6 million in revenue in 2017, of which 75% was to pros.
EBS--which appears on the PS100 list as Ellsworth Builders Supply--has 300 employees across 10 locations: Bar Harbor, Belfast, Blue Hill, Bucksport, Calais, Camden, Cherryfield, Ellsworth, Machias, and Rockland. Top EBS management and staff will become part of Hammond Lumber, and EBS stores tentatively will keep their name.
"Their 10 locations along the coast are a great addition and a perfect geographic fit for us to serve more customers across the state, and specifically eastern Maine," Hammond president/CEO Mike Hammond said in a news release.
Up to now, Hammond has had 13 locations. As part of the announcement, Hammond will close its Pemaquid and Wilton locations and reassign staff to its Farmington and Damariscotta stores. Its other locations are in Auburn, Bangor, Belgrade, Boothbay Harbor, Brunswick, Fairfield, Greenville, Portland, and Skowhegan.
Anchor Peabody was Hammond's financial adviser on the deal and will help integrate EBS. Jason Fraler, a managing partner at the firm, said the purchase shows how strong independents can use M&A to keep growing even as LBM's giants continue their acquisitive ways.
"Here's a company that says ''We're in this for the long haul and we are going to get on offense to defend our turf,'" Fraler told ProSales.
The veteran dealmaker also says the Hammond announcement comes at a time at which "it's white-hot from a transaction standpoint" in construction supply. "You will see one, maybe two, new platforms in the space by the end of the year, with new capital investment coming in," he predicted. "We are busier than we have ever been. We have three deals under [letters of intent] on the sell side, all in LBM. The lull has been because US LBM has been off the market, and Builders FirstSource has been doing its thing [following the acquisition of ProBuild] ... but now everybody's getting fixed and new capital is coming into the space."
