James Hardie has made Boise Cascade the sole nationwide distributor of its entire exterior portfolio across the United States, with the agreement taking effect on 31 July across the distributor’s national network of building materials centres. That is according to Jeff Strom, Chief Executive of Boise Cascade, who announced it on the same day as second quarter results showing engineered wood products sales through the distribution arm down 6 per cent.
“Customers want trusted brands, reliable availability, and dependable service,” Strom said of an agreement under which Boise Cascade will transition away from every competing siding, trim, and exterior moulding product it distributes.
Decking went the same way three weeks earlier, with Trex naming Specialty Building Products its sole national distributor on 13 July and ending its commercial arrangement with Boise Cascade on 12 August. Neither manufacturer is paying a termination fee for the separation.
Strom presented the agreement alongside a quarter that went backwards on the wood side, with net income of US$57.3 million on sales of $1.8 billion, compared with $62.0 million on $1.7 billion a year earlier, when the result carried $5.8 million of after-tax gains on property sales. Building Materials Distribution grew sales by 5 per cent to $1.7 billion, while Wood Products, the manufacturing arm, grew by 3 per cent to $459.6 million.
General line products drove distribution growth at 9 per cent, and commodity products at 7 per cent, while engineered wood products fell 6 per cent, the only category in the division to decline. Distribution earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation fell to $85.6 million from $91.8 million, narrowing the divisional margin to 5.0 per cent from 5.7 per cent.
Plywood prices moved the other way, climbing 15 per cent to $393 per thousand feet as Brazilian imports fell 25 per cent and new Section 301 tariffs took effect, three months after the company pleaded guilty to a Lacey Act violation over Chinese plywood smuggled through Malaysia. Segment earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation recovered to $52.4 million from $37.3 million.
“We will create an even more seamless customer experience,” Aaron Erter, Chief Executive of James Hardie Industries, said of a group listed in New York and Sydney whose brands run from Hardie and Versatex through AZEK, TimberTech, and StruXure.
Boise Cascade pays for that exclusivity in inventory, winding down stock from legacy suppliers through the rest of 2026 before loading Hardie products into many locations in September and selling the full range from the fourth quarter. Financial support under the agreement begins on 1 October.
Six regional distributors take everything outside that national channel, with James Hardie naming Capital Lumber, Dixie Plywood and Lumber, Lumbermen’s, Parksite, Woodgrain, and Woolf Distributing to carry the complete portfolio in selected markets. Each will add Hardie siding and trim to the AZEK and TimberTech lines they already stock.
One purchase order, one delivery truck, and one sales representative is how Jo Barney, Executive Vice President of Building Materials Distribution, describes what dealers get from the consolidated portfolio, with Strom naming home centres as the channel where a complete national line matters most. More than 600 Boise Cascade salespeople will work the expanded range alongside the James Hardie and TimberTech teams.
Composite decking has grown at more than 15 per cent a year for seven years by converting customers from wood, and James Hardie paid $12.8 billion for AZEK last year to own that trade, with Boise Cascade now selling the portfolio to the dealers it once supplied with Trex.
It comes as Strom named the conditions holding back residential construction, putting United States housing starts down 1 per cent year on year and single-family starts down 4 per cent, with affordability, consumer sentiment, and volatile mortgage rates among the constraints he listed.
Chief Financial Officer Kelly Hibbs guides Wood Products to third-quarter earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation of between $22 million and $57 million, with engineered wood volumes set to fall by a mid-single-digit percentage, even as a 3 per cent price increase reaches customers only as contracts allow.
