Address:
4300 Wildwood Pkwy
Atlanta, GA 30339
Phone:
770 953-7000
Year Founded:
2004
Total Annual Sales:
$1,907,842,000
Senior Executives:
Howard S. Cohen- Executive Chairman
H. Douglas Goforth- Senior VP, CFO, Treasurer
In 2004, BlueLinx was improbably begun by an investment group composed of the executives of a private equity firm combining energies with management personnel representing the distribution division of Georgia-Pacific. In 2005, this newly formed entity was offered to the public through an IPO. This resulted with a listing on the New York Stock Exchange.
BlueLinx grew rapidly as an independent entity with sales of over $4 billion, for its first year of operation. Sales for the newly minted company rose just over thirty percent during its second year. During the company’s third year however, early effects of the subprime crisis began to hit the industry. BlueLinx annual sales rose just above one percent.
After 2005, BlueLinx began to experience continuous annual declines, consistently in the neighborhood of $1 billion per year thorough 2009. Since then the company has alternated between annual increases and decreases in the $200,000 range. As noted above, last December’s annuals came in at just under $2 billion. These fluctuations and totals are in line with those of most of the industry. Of course, our distributors rely heavily on new home construction which has obviously been struggling even more than most avenues of the recessionary national scheme.
As a personal note, prior to the dawning of BlueLinx, the distribution division of Georgia-Pacific was consistently one of the top performers on Chain Store Guide’s Index of Leading Companies for our database of Building Products Distributors. As only a part of an actual division of the giant, diverse Georgia-Pacific empire, Georgia-Pacific executives proved prudent and kind enough to order a complex annual number crunch in order to give Chain Store Guide annual sales numbers which reflected the aspects of the company’s distribution which met with CSG criteria. The number crunch was designed to meet specific standards and thus required about ten business days to complete. Thus we at Chain Store Guide were able to provide our clientele with the exacting data they demanded.
This year, Chain Store Guide celebrates its 80th anniversary. In honor of this occasion, we are hosting a monthly series of editorials called “Chain Store Guide Through The Ages”, starting with the 1930s. We will take a look at what was happening in that time and how it affected the industries we now serve. Our Company Snapshots will examine companies from that period and see where they are today.
