PPG has agreed to sell 100 percent of its architectural coatings business in the U.S. and Canada for US$550 million to American Industrial Partners, a New York City-based private equity firm. PPG said that division in the U.S. and Canada represented approximately US$2 billion of its 2023 total net sales. The company’s annual sales in 2023 were US$18.2 billion. The transaction is expected to close in late 2024 or early 2025.

PPG’s brands include Glidden, Pittsburgh Paints, Manor Hall, Olympic, Liquid Nails, Homax, Flood, Sico, and Dulux (in Canada). In Canada, PPG has manufacturing facilities and DCs in Delta, B.C., and Vaughan, Ont., as well as a DC in Moncton.

Sarah McGoldrick

Ace Canada dealers got some bad news yesterday from Ace Hardware’s U.S. head office. A letter sent to Ace dealers in Canada, signed by Ed Dentzman, vice-president, international finance, for Ace Hardware Corp., informed the dealers that they would not be supplied or otherwise supported by Ace in 2025. The Ace licence in Canada had been held by Peavey Industries, based in Red Deer, Alta., but that licensing agreement ends on Dec. 31.

Dealers had been anticipating that Ace International, which services the Ace licence here, would take over in the new year.

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Canadian independent retailers are feeling increasingly optimistic, but remain less so than prior to the pandemic, according to a survey by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Andreea Bourgeois, economics director at the CFIB, told Retail Insider that the sector is “on the right path but still far from reaching ideal potential.” According to the CFIB’s Business Barometer, retailer confidence is at a score of 54.5, up from 42.7 last year but below the low-60s range typical before Covid.

Benjamin Moore has announced its Colour of the Year 2025. Cinnamon Slate 2113-40 is described as “a delicate mix of heathered plum and velvety brown.”

“As the use of more saturated colour in design has increased in recent years, we are seeing a growing interest in more nuanced colours, whose undertones add intricacy and dimension,” said Andrea Magno, director of colour marketing and design at Benjamin Moore, in a release.

Sarah McGoldrick

Housing starts in the U.S. fell by 0.5 percent in September to 1.35 million, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Year over year, starts were down 0.7 percent. The number of building permits declined by 2.9 percent from August and 5.7 percent from a year earlier, reaching 1.43 million. Single-family permits however stood 0.3 percent above the previous month.

Investment in building construction edged up 0.2 percent to $21.0 billion in August, StatCan reports, following a 1.6 percent decrease in July. The residential sector edged down by 0.1 percent to $14.6 billion, while the non-residential sector was up 1.0 percent to $6.4 billion. Single-family home investment rose by 0.1 percent, or $9.0 million, to $6.7 billion, following a decline of 2.2 percent in July.

The RONA Foundation has announced the results of its Home Sweet Home campaign, which ran from Sept. 1 to Oct. 7. The company raised over $515,000, which will be used towards revitalizing living environments or improving access to housing for victims of domestic violence and their children, low-income families, and people with disabilities or mental health issues. The 150 organizations were selected by each local team (pictured: RONA Coquitlam, B.C.).

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

On Oct. 20, 2014, almost ten years ago, we reported on Amazon’s e-commerce sales in Canada. They represented “nearly $1.5 billion of Canadian e-retail sales in 2013,” according to a study from BMO Capital Markets and reported at the time in the Toronto Star.

Amazon Canada’s e-commerce sales had grown to seven times that amount, a decade later, Hardlines calculates—or $10.5 billion in 2023 (all dollar figures are Canadian). That amount only includes Amazon Canada’s digital sales, because it also counts on brick-and-mortar stores for about a third of its revenues, including its Whole Foods Market stores, acquired in 2017.

September’s inflation rate fell to 1.6 percent, year over year, Statistics Canada reported yesterday. While that was lower than the Bank of Canada’s 2.0 percent inflation goal for September, there were cautionary notes in the report from the federal agency.

First of all, the national inflation rate reduction was led by year-over-year lower gasoline prices, which fell 10.7 percent in September. But rental prices rose by 8.2 percent, while food prices continued to grow at a rate faster than inflation. Excluding the gasoline price drop, the Consumer Price Index came in at 2.2 percent, the same as August.

Sales of existing Canadian homes rose by 1.9 percent in September from the previous month, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association. On an annual basis, they were up by 6.9 percent. The increase was led by the Greater Toronto Area, Hamilton-Burlington, Montreal, Quebec City, Greater Vancouver, and Victoria.