Canadian Tire Corp. reported its fourth-quarter and year-end results this morning, with revenue down 16.8 percent from Q4 2022 to $4.44 billion. Not including petroleum, revenue actually decreased by 17.8 percent. Consolidated comparable sales were down 6.8 percent. Retail sales fell 7.1 percent to $5.32 billion, down 7.1 percent.

For the full year, Canadian Tire’s consolidated retail sales were $18.50 billion, down 3.9 percent. Consolidated retail sales, excluding petroleum, decreased 3.1 percent and consolidated comp sales were down 2.9 percent.

(We’ll have more on Canadian Tire’s year-end in Monday’s eye-popping edition of our flagship publication, Hardlines Weekly Report. It’s exclusive to our Hardlines Premium Members!)

The RONA corporate store in Sainte-Thérèse, Que., has been acquired by a group of RONA’s affiliated dealers. Eddy Calderon and Karl Tremblay, affiliated dealers from the Calderon Group, took over the location, adding it to their other two stores, both in Quebec: RONA Quincaillerie Métro in Laval and RONA Pincourt. Danny Lewis, a former RONA employee, will join Calderon and Tremblay as a shareholder partner in the RONA Sainte-Thérèse project.

Shown here (l-r:) Pierre Nolet, director, eastern Canada operations and sales, RONA inc.; Karl Tremblay, owner, Calderon Group; Eddy Calderon, owner, Calderon Group; Danny Lewis, shareholder partner, RONA Sainte-Thérèse; Roger Bois-Grossiant, director, western Canada operations and sales, RONA inc.; and Richard Beauchamp, district manager, sales and customer relations, RONA inc.

West Fraser Timber Co. has reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $153 million on sales of $1.51 billion. Full-year sales were $6.45 billion, down from $9.70 billion in 2022. The company had a net loss for the year of $167 million, down from a net profit $1.98 billion in 2022.

“The fourth quarter of 2023 saw continued weakness in demand for our North American lumber and European panel products,” said Sean McLaren, West Fraser’s president and CEO in a release. “In contrast, demand for our North American OSB, plywood and other engineered products experienced resilient demand as new home construction markets were surprisingly robust, with mortgage rates showing signs of stabilizing after moving meaningfully higher earlier in the year.”

Martina Pileggi has been promoted to the role of senior director, North American Business Partners at The Hillman Group. A veteran HR executive, she was previously head of HR for Hillman Canada.

Pileggi is a valued contributor to our sister publication, Hardlines HR Advisor. Congrats from all of us Hardlines!

The total level of seasonally adjusted housing starts in January decreased by 10 percent to 223,589 units, compared with December 2023, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. Despite these declines, the actual number of housing starts across Canada in centres of 10,000 population and over was up 13 percent to 14,878 units.

Throwback Thursday is a regular feature in which we dip into the archives of the Hardlines Weekly Report.

In our Feb. 17, 2014, edition of the Hardlines Weekly Report we interviewed Sylvain Prud’homme, then president of Lowe’s Canada, at a tour of the new Burlington, Ont., Lowe’s store. Prud’homme talked about extensive research that had been undertaken about why contractors shopped—or chose not to shop—at Lowe’s Canada’s stores. The research was behind the changes that Lowe’s Canada had made to its contractor desk at this store.

Patrick Morin has doubled the footprint of its distribution centre in order to support the growth of its store network. The addition of 150,000 square feet brings the facility’s total surface to more than 340,000 square feet. It includes 52 loading docks and a 400,000-square-foot lumber yard.

At M-D Building Products, Andrew Gladstone has been promoted to VP of sales, Canada (pro and consumer channels). Gladstone joined the company in June 2022 as VP of sales, retail channel. He is based at M-D’s main sales and marketing location in Milton, Ont., near the Toronto Pearson International Airport.

Payzant Building Products, a member of Home Hardware, announced yesterday via LinkedIn that it had celebrated the “soft launch” of its 60,000-square-foot fulfilment centre in Fall River, N.S. The location is just north of the Halifax/Dartmouth metro area. On 18 acres of land, the fulfilment centre will serve the nine-outlet regional chain, which has eight stores in Nova Scotia and one in New Brunswick, and allow it to potentially expand. Payzant was founded 60 years ago.

Western Forest Products reported a net loss of $14.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2023, compared with losses of $17.4 million in the previous quarter and $21.4 million a year earlier. That was attributed to lower pricing and shipment volumes on a stronger lumber sales mix. The annual net loss of $70.1 million for 2023 followed net income of $61.8 million in 2022.