HOME & BUILDING PRODUCTS
Over the past five years, our ability to cultivate relationships and to team with strategic partners has enabled us to source and execute ten acquisitions, creating a broad portfolio of brands covering a large spectrum of home and building products. Our highly respected and recognized brands hold leading market positions in the United States, Canada, Australasia and the United Kingdom, and our most recent acquisitions of ClosetMaid and CornellCookson create opportunities to realize enhanced sales and profitability across our HBP segment.
AMES
AMES was founded in Massachusetts in 1774, and has the distinction of being one of the oldest companies in continuous operations in the United States. Over its long life, AMES has grown organically and through the acquisition of other leading and historic tool businesses such as True Temper, Union, and Garant. Today, AMES is the leading manufacturer of long-handled tools and landscaping products for homeowners and professionals in the United States, and also provides these products in key global markets including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. With the addition of ClosetMaid, AMES is also the leading provider of wood and wire closet organization, general living storage, and wire garage storage products in the United States.
Since being acquired by Griffon in 2010, AMES has benefited from strategic acquisitions that have expanded its product portfolio and geographic presence. The ClosetMaid, Southern Patio, and Harper Brush Works acquisitions added to AMES’ product categories in North America to include storage and organization, decorative landscaping, and cleaning products. The acquisitions of Northcote, Cyclone, Hills, and Tuscan Path in Australia established AMES as a leading supplier of tools and landscaping categories in the Australian market. As a result of the acquisitions of Kelkay and La Hacienda, the United Kingdom and Ireland has become a new key market for AMES products.
AMES’ brands are among the most recognized across its primary product categories in North America, Australia and the United Kingdom. Its brand portfolio for long-handled tools and landscaping product includes AMES®, True Temper®, Garant®, Harper®, UnionTools® , WestmixÔ, Cyclone®, Southern Patio®, Northcote PotteryÔ, Nylex®, Hills®, Kelkay®, Tuscan Path®, La Hacienda®, KelsoÔ, and Dynamic Design®Ô. Contractor-oriented tool brands include Razor-Back® Professional Tools and Jackson® Professional Tools. AMES’ closet organization, general living storage, and garage storage products are sold primarily under the ClosetMaid® brand.
This strong portfolio of brands enables AMES to build and maintain long-standing relationships with leading retailers and distributors. In addition, given the breadth of its brand portfolio and product category depth, AMES is able to offer specific, differentiated branding strategies for key retail customers. These strategies have focused on enhancement of brand value, with the goal of de-commoditizing AMES products through the introduction of identity and functionality elements that will make each top brand unique, attractive and visually recognizable by the consumer. The visual brand transformation of the AMES® and Razor-Back® brands was completed in 2015, and the True Temper® line roll-out was completed in 2016. In addition to the brands listed, AMES also sells private label branded products, further differentiating AMES in its customer offerings.
AMES sells products throughout North America, Australia, New Zealand and Europe through (1) home centers, such as The Home Depot, Inc. (“Home Depot”), Lowe’s Companies Inc. (“Lowe’s”), Rona Inc., Bunnings Warehouse (“Bunnings”) and Woodies (with the average length of the relationship with these customers being approximately 30 years); (2) mass market, specialty, and hardware retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (“Walmart”), Target Corporation (“Target”), Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited (“Canadian Tire”), Costco Wholesale Corporation (“Costco”), Ace, Do-It-Best and True Value Company; (3) industrial