Three Green LBM Shoots Bring Hope to a Currently Gloomy M&A Market

LBM facilities acquired (blue pins), that have or will open (green pins) or that have closed (red pins) YTD 2025. Source: Webb Analytics

You have to look at both sides of the coin to get a sense of how LBM acquisitions, openings, and closures are faring this year. On one side are relatively meager numbers: just 26 deals involving 17 buyers that have led to acquisitions of 50 locations nationwide. But on the other side is something we haven't seen much lately: Green startups.

First, the deals. There have been two significant ones since mid-March: Builders FirstSource's acquisition of Truckee-Tahoe Lumber, whose seven locations serve northern Nevada and California's upper Lake Tahoe region; and SRS Distribution's purchase of Stateline Irrigation Supply, a landscaping company with nine locations in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.

As for the startups, there were three. Kennon Lumber sprung to life in the eastern Oregon town of Elgin. Founder Tyler Kennon, a combination handyman/contractor/farmer/rancher, is sourcing cedar, pine and fir wood products from an area native who runs a lumber mill in northern California.

Then there's Ponderosa Building Supply, which Kodiak Building Partners set up in Hauser, ID, just east of Spokane, WA. Most of the Kodiak-owned lumberyards are west of the Cascades, so the creation of a brand-new, separately named lumberyard could signal it plans to grow in the Rockies.

And finally there's Revol Building Solutions, a components plant that has started business in Wanatah, IN, southeast of Chicago. Co-founder Joshua Ratcliff is a former executive at Ambassador Supply. That company had purchased the Wanatah property from Continental Carpentry in 2022, and now Ratcliff and co-founder Stinson Dean are starting up on their own.

In other M&A activity:

R.P. Lumber bought Aldrich Home Center of Powell, WY. It's R.P.'s third branch in the state. R.P. also opened a new store in Quincy, IL.
Schockman Lumber Group, a holdng company for several smaller dealers in the Midwest, purchased F.A. Requarth of Dayton, OH. That dealer is famous for having sold lumber to the Wright Brothers.
ABC Supply purchased Roofing & Supplies Inc. of Richmond, VA.
Westlake Ace Hardware took over Edgebrook Ace Hardware of Chicago.
Costello's Ace Hardware took over Aldrich Home Center of Appomattox, VA.