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August 11, 2014 Volume
xx, #31
“Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you. —Aldous Huxley (British novelist, essayist and satirist, 1894-1963)
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NO ISSUE OF HARDLINES NEXT WEEK
Summer Publication Schedule: Please note there will be no weekly edition of HARDLINES on August 18 or 25. The World Headquarters will remain open, however, during this time. Our regular weekly publishing schedule will resume September 1.
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BREAKING NEWS: Ace files legal action against TIM-BR MART
SPECIAL REPORT — HARDLINES has learned that Ace Hardware in the U.S. has filed an emergency injunction against its Canadian partner, TIM-BR MART Group, through TIM-BR MART’s parent company, TBM Holdco Ltd.
The injunction centres around the licensing agreement Ace has with TIM-BR MART, which expires August 31. After that date, Ace dealers in Canada will be free to seek other sources of hardware supply and other banner affiliations. (RONA has forged a new deal with Ace, and will represent the banner in Canada effective September 1.) Until that time, TIM-BR MART cannot make any efforts to convert the dealers. The legal action charges that this was not the case.
The injunction further suggests that TIM-BR MART is not acting in good faith, even though many Ace dealers are also members of TIM-BR MART Group. TIM-BR MART has challenged that claim (see next story).
According to the emergency arbitrator, in a letter sent to TIM-BR MART, “TBM will not, directly or indirectly, by any means, solicit, attempt to solicit, induce, or cause, or attempt to solicit, induce or cause any of the [Canadian Ace retail stores] to alter their branding or banner affiliations with Ace.”
But that doesn’t just mean until August 31. What is surprising about the latest development is the fact that Ace’s legal action has imposed a two-year non-compete on TIM-BR MART. “TBM may not solicit the Ace Stores to sell them any home improvement goods competitive with hardware or home improvement goods available from Ace.”
That clause takes direct aim at TIM-BR MART’s own wholesale hardware business, Chalifour Canada, which would be the likely replacement for a source of hardware supply to those Ace dealers. The majority of Ace dealers are also LBM dealers with TIM-BR MART Group and are expected to stay with TIM-BR MART, which supplies the majority of their product needs.
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TIM-BR MART responds to Ace’s emergency order
SPECIAL REPORT — TIM-BR MART Group, through its parent company, TBM Holdco Ltd., is facing legal action from Ace Hardware’s International division. TBM has been charged by its soon-to-be former partner of acting in bad faith as their long-standing licensing agreement winds down at the end of this month. A release by Ace dated August 4 refers to that legal action, saying that TBM has been attempting to switch Ace dealers to an alternative source of hardware supply before the August 31 deadline.
Now, TBM has responded with a statement of its own.
“The Ace press release is misleading,” says Bernie Owens, president of TBM, who issued a release to set the record straight. “Ace sought an emergency order to require TBM to do what we had already said we would do—cooperate to complete the wind-down process as amicably, orderly, and efficiently as possible and maintain the status quo until the main arbitration is heard.”
Owens says the very act of seeking an “emergency” order was a tactic to proclaim that TBM had acted badly. “Our only concern is for all our members,” Owens says. “They are free to carry on with Ace or not. It’s their choice. If any of our members want to team up with Ace’s new partner, RONA, we’ll cooperate. Either way, TBM remains fully committed to serving the interests of all its members.”
While stating its position to act in good faith until the August 31 deadline, the TIM-BR MART release does not mention Ace’s intention to impose a two-year non-compete. This would prevent TIM-BR MART’s own wholesale supplier, Chalifour Canada, from stepping in after the August 31 deadline.
“Looking ahead, I am confident that TIM-BR MART will prevail once we have the opportunity in the near future to fully and accurately state our case,” Owens says.
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IN DEPTH: RONA’s licensing and distribution deals with Ace
HARDLINES EXCLUSIVE — Ace Hardware’s licensing agreement with TIM-BR MART Group won’t end officially until August 31, but RONA area managers are already knocking on the doors of Ace stores in this country offering them “the Ace package.”
And no wonder. RONA has concluded a master license agreement with Ace Hardware, ensuring a continued foothold in this country for the giant Oak Brook, Ill.-based co-op. Behind the scenes at RONA, the undertaking was referred to as “Project Racetrack,” and the area managers were true to the name, coming out of the gate early to knock on doors and present the Ace package.
Ace, which is carried by about 120 stores in Canada, is winding down a long-term licensing deal with TIM-BR MART Group, after both sides cited dissatisfaction with the relationship.
The new, long-term agreement gives RONA the rights to the Ace brand and lets it tap into Ace’s retail operating systems and web portals. But the partnership doesn’t end there. RONA has also signed a long-term distribution agreement with Ace’s International division, giving RONA access to products available through Ace Hardware’s various channels of distribution. These include Ace International’s Shanghai distribution centre, which ships container loads of products to Ace dealers around the world.
The new agreements are seen as yet another way that RONA is bolstering its support for independent dealers, with the addition of one more banner for them to choose from in the marketplace and a wider range of products and programs to choose from.
“This agreement will enable us to improve our offering to small dealers across the country, to leverage our existing distribution infrastructure, and to strengthen our portfolio of banners,” says Robert Sawyer, president and CEO of RONA.
Of the 120 dealers carrying the Ace banner here, and nearly 100 of them are in Quebec. They carry Ace either by itself or in tandem with another banner, usually TIMBER MART, reflecting TIM-BR MART Group’s long-time relationship with Ace.
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RONA will hand Ace portfolio to its Winnipeg team
WINNIPEG — On a North American basis, given the proximity of RONA’s TruServ Canada DC in Winnipeg to Ace’s Chicago-area operations, much of the emphasis on Ace from RONA’s side will come out of the TruServ division.
“This agreement will enable us to improve our offering to small dealers across the country, to leverage our existing distribution infrastructure, and to strengthen our portfolio of banners,” says Robert Sawyer, president and CEO of RONA. He adds that the Ace brand will complement the existing RONA and TRU brands and help with recruitment of dealers in areas of the country where RONA has a limited presence.
While the RONA brand remains strong in its home province of Quebec, and the TRU banner is gaining ground primarily in Western Canada, the addition of Ace can give RONA more traction in Central and Atlantic Canada.
To make the Ace initiative truly national, RONA will also have a team working out of its Boucherville, Que., head office dedicated full-time to the Ace program, in addition to Winnipeg.
According to Luc Rodier, SVP of RONA, about half of the Ace-bannered dealers are strictly hardware stores, giving RONA the opportunity to move in and convince those dealers to switch distributors without interruption to their own store’s brand.
However, many of the dealers outside of Quebec are also building supply dealers, and most of those are TIMBER MART dealers as well. These would likely be less inclined to switch loyalties, especially in light of the fact that TIM-BR MART Group, through its hardware wholesale business Chalifour Canada, has hinted that it’s working on a hardware program of its own, which will be offered to dealers once the August 31 deadline is up.
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BACKGROUND: Ace has a long history in Canada
SPECIAL REPORT — Ace Hardware is the largest co-op home improvement retailer in the U.S., and in the world. Its reach extends to more than 60 countries, but its presence in its neighbour to the north has always been problematic.
Ace’s first attempt to secure a foothold in Canada actually took the form of negotiations back in the 1980s with Cochrane-Dunlop, a full-line hardware wholesaler. Ace even chatted around that time with Macleod-Stedman (which later became TruServ Canada).
It wasn’t until 1992 that a deal was finally struck with LBM distributor CanWel. Tom Longworth, then CEO of CanWel, had a vision that Ace’s hardware products could be fed through CanWel’s 21 distribution centres across the country. However, that deal never really got off the ground for either Ace or CanWel. It did, however, result in a handful of dealers in British Columbia who, to this day, receive products directly from Ace’s U.S. distribution system.
In 1995, Ralph Trott, the pony-tailed, vintage-car driving president of Beaver Lumber at the time, decided to rely on a third-party hardware distributor to supply Beaver’s 155 stores. In a landmark deal, Beaver went with Ace, which took over Beaver’s own hardware distribution facilities in Markham, Ont., near Beaver’s head office, plus a DC in Calgary. Under an aggressive young dealer development team, the Ace banner began to spread across Canada beyond the Beaver business. However, Beaver Lumber was acquired at the end of 1999, depriving Ace of what still amounted to the bulk of its Canadian business.
Rather than pull out, Ace continued to grow its dealer base under Dunc Wilson, who now heads up Home Hardware’s dealer development team. Ace managed to get supply agreements with TIM-BR MART, Castle, Homecare, and AWARD. In the fall of 2001, it even signed a deal to supply hardware to 91 members of the Allroc buying group in Western Canada. However, the business wasn’t enough to keep Ace’s Calgary DC afloat and that facility was shuttered around the same time.
By 2002, Ace had about 120 bannered dealers in Canada, and shipped to another 300 building supply dealers, but that was still not enough to make the company viable. Then, in November of that year, the giant Canadian hardware wholesaler Sodisco-Howden Group bought up Ace Canada and secured the license for the Ace banner in this country.
From there, Ace’s presence in Canada followed the fate of Sodisco-Howden, which was acquired just two years later by CanWel Building Supplies. During that time, CanWel allied with TruServ Canada to create Pro Retail Services, a dealer support network that began tapping into Ace’s newly created International division shipping out of Shanghai.
In the fall of 2010, CanWel Building Supplies sold off its CanWel, Hardware division to TIM-BR MART Group. That buying group renamed the business Chalifour Canada, and continued the licensing arrangement with Ace. That agreement fell apart this summer, with both sides citing dissatisfaction. Insiders suggest that TIM-BR MART’s Ace dealers were dissatisfied with import product coming from the Shanghai DC, while Ace itself was frustrated by the volumes being generated by TIM-BR MART dealers.
Now, with a newly minted agreement with Canada’s largest home improvement retailer, Ace is now part of a wider offering for independent dealers that includes the RONA and TRU banners.
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Imperial’s Norm Caissie acquires Don Park in Toronto
TORONTO — Normand Caissie founder of Richibucto, N.B.-based Imperial Manufacturing, has acquired Don Park Residential Manufacturing, a Toronto-based producer of galvanized duct, pipe, and fitting products for the HVAC market. Don Park had been part of Emco’s takeover of RONA’s commercial division a year ago.
Caissie’s acquisition applies only to the Don Park manufacturing facility in Toronto and does not include the firm’s commercial manufacturing and fire divisions. The company will operate under the name of Don Park Manufacturing Inc.
“This is the biggest acquisition we’ve ever done,” says Mario Caissie, president of Imperial Manufacturing. “But it’s the 19th we’ve made in the past 35 years.” Imperial’s holdings range as far west as Alton, Ill., and as far south as Atlanta, Ga.
Caissie is a well-known New Brunswick businessman in the HVAC industry. He was named Ernest & Young’s 2002 Entrepreneur of the Year (Manufacturing), Conseil Economique du Nouveau-Brunswick’s Entrepreneur of the Year in both 1987 and 1991, Quality Plus Entrepreneur Award recipient in 1992, Université de Moncton’s 2000 Alumnus of the Year, Ernst & Young’s 2001 Entrepreneur of the Year, and the 2010 inductee to the Canadian Hardware and Housewares Manufacturers Association’s Hall of Fame.
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Lowe’s launches rush-delivery service for pros
MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Lowe’s has announced the rollout of ProExpress, an on-demand delivery service to get pros the emergency and last minute supplies they need. However, the service won’t appear in Canada—at least not yet.
ProExpress has actually been up and running since April, with a fleet of light-duty trucks making deliveries directly to business sites. Through the program, Lowe's has helped pros by fulfilling emergency orders such as smoke detectors to pass an inspection, or shingles to complete a job before a damaging storm.
The ProExpress trucks also regularly visit businesses to restock shelves with cleaning and maintenance supplies.
The ProExpress program is currently available at more than 200 Lowe’s stores across the country and is designed to complement existing store delivery services by providing a resource that is fully dedicated to pro customers. “For pros, time is money,” said Mike Horn, vice president of ProServices. “The ProExpress program allows us to offer our pro customers the ultimate convenience and flexibility by delivering the materials they need, when they need them.”
Lowe’s Canada will watch the performance of the new program before deciding whether it would be a fit for its stores north of the border.
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Classified Ads
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Valid driver's license and clean driving record
Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written.
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- Bilingual - English / French an asset
- Overnight travel required up to 25%
This challenging position offers a competitive compensation package, comprehensive benefits package, a company auto and the potential for an annual bonus.
Interested applicants may find out more and apply by clicking here.
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Director, Retail Sales- Schlage
Leading a national team of sales professionals, the Director of Retail Sales, controls and directs all activities of the retail sales organization, ensures development of retail programmes to attain planned sales, productivity and budget compliance. Driving profitable growth through best in class category leadership, account management and flawless execution against our strategic plan
- Directs the domestic retail sales activities including, Big Box, LBM and e-Commerce
- Exercises management and sales initiatives which ensure that a competitive position is maintained within the market.
- Directs sales planning and provides input to market research activities.
- Reviews sales and forecasts.
- Makes recommendations for new products and changes in existing products
Experience
- Minimum 10 years related experience in retail or consumer packaged goods environment Big Box DYI preferred
- 5-10 years’ of progressive sales experience
- Minimum of 5 years’ experience in a senior position leading a sales team
- University degree preferred or an equivalent degree in a field of study related to the position
For more information about this position visit http://careers.allegion.com/ for more details.
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National Account Manager
Blount International, Inc. has an exceptional National Account Manager opportunity supporting our global headquarters in Portland, Oregon by representing our products to their assigned customer base within Canada.
This position has the primary responsibility to sell an established consumer goods product line to mass merchants in Canada. This means conducting all marketing functions through the entire sales channel. The job also requires collecting information that will enable the Company to react in a timely manner to competitive actions and market trends. The primary area for this position is in Southern Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic provinces.
RESPONSIBILITIES INCLUDE, BUT ARE NOT LIMTED TO:
- Developing and growing sales opportunities via an increase in sales and market share, while maintaining solid profits; Achieving sales targets and goals
- Calling on national and regional retailers, hardware coops and hardware distributors at their HQ location, as well as supporting those customers via field visits
- Ensuring that top selling products are represented in the retail line
- Reviewing inventory movement and cull the line of slow selling products – replace with faster moving products
- Identifying new products/new program growth opportunities
- Managing the day-to-day account management responsibilities
- Making certain that customer's website, catalogues, and rental locations product offerings are up to date
- Presenting marketing & advertising programs for all products
- Supporting our negotiated retailer programs in the field by meeting with individual retailers
For more information about this position visit http://www.blount.com Click on the tab Careers and choose Search Careers –Canada.
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Turkstra Lumber
Purchasing Department
Turkstra Lumber is looking for an individual with industry experience, strong business acumen, an advanced knowledge of Excel and very strong negotiation skills for an opening in the Purchasing Department. Responsibilities include setting up and negotiating programs, sourcing product and maximizing profit. Please forward resume to hr@turkstralumber.com.
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