Welcome to our team
STARK Group officially welcomes all new UK colleagues to the Group.
On 1 March 2023, Saint-Gobain Building Distribution UK became part of STARK Group and renamed STARK Building Materials UK.
Together we are a leading retailer and distributor of heavy building materials in Europe, serving professional tradespeople from our more than 1,150 branches and distribution centres. Being 20,000 people in a EUR 7bn business on a growth trajectory, we believe the future looks bright.
Watch our virtual Day 1 celebration event here.
We are STARK Group
STARK Group is a leading retailer and distributor of building materials. We live and breathe to serve professional tradespeople with heavy building materials all the way from the Austrian Alps to Tromsø, close to the Arctic circle and everywhere in between.
Being present in the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Austria, Norway and Greenland, we play an instrumental role in building, renovating and maintaining the cities of tomorrow.
We empower the professional tradespeople with insights, product knowledge and sound advice, as well as advise suppliers about market developments and customer feedback. This has made us a national or regional leader in all our markets, and today we stand as a EUR 7bn business on a growth trajectory.
We build our future by helping others build theirs.
EUR 7bn
Net sales
1,150
Branches and distribution centres
20,000
Employees
Decency as the foundation
We believe in trusted relationships, that trust is earned, and that trust builds the future.
In everything we do, we aim to earn trust. Trust from our customers, colleagues and partners. Trust requires integrity, and integrity requires decency. As a market leader, it is vital that we keep our promises, and the success of our customers is always at the forefront of our daily activities.
This includes equal treatment and opportunities for all, providing an accident-free workplace with continuous improvement in health, safety and well-being, maintaining our high level of employee engagement, and responsibly sourcing our products and services
It is only by being fully committed to our dealings with colleagues, customers and partners that we earn the right to be the most trusted builders' merchant.
Values
Our core values reflect what we do, the services we provide and the company that we are.
Decency
We act with decency towards customers, colleagues, and partners
Passion
We care deeply about people and society
Pride
We take pride in delivering what we promise
Let's grow together
The turnaround
STARK Group has been through a successful transformation in recent years. In 2016, we went back to basics and made a strategic pivot and turnaround from underperformance under conglomerate ownership. We sharpened our strategy to, among other things, focus on SMEs, and we divested our DIY business.
We believe that the branches are the beating heart of our company; hence, accountability and responsibility should be locally anchored. Therefore, a vital step on our journey was to create a decentralised operating model with strong local ownership close to markets and decision-making powers with branches and business units. Our decentralised model supports our performance culture, where corporate development and employee engagement drive strong customer satisfaction and loyalty.
In 2018, the Group started accelerating growth through bolt-on acquisitions to deepen coverage of attractive areas and bolster market positions. In 2019, we saw strategic momentum and completed the transformational acquisition of the market leader in Germany, 11 brands, 220 branches with a total of 5,000 employees, from previous conglomerate ownership by Saint Gobain Building Distribution.
In spring 2023, we completed the transformational acquisition of Saint Gobain Building Distribution UK Ltd. comprising 14 brands, +600 branches and distribution centres with a total of nearly 9,000 employees.
Today, we play an important role as a consolidator of fragmented markets for retail and distribution of heavy building materials. In the past five years, we have acquired more than 950 branches across the business to form a dense branch network in attractive local markets and to establish a presence in new geographies. By acquiring new businesses, we have added new capabilities, expanded our leadership in the generalist market into specialist areas such as tiles, roofing and façade, as well as civil engineering, all while becoming a more attractive partner for our customers and suppliers.
Our recipe for success
Our transformation and success are driven by having the right people in the right places to execute the right strategy. We are organised and operate to win and consolidate attractive markets with a strategic focus on heavy building materials, RMI and SME customers facilitated through our seven operational pillars of excellence.
We focus on having a dense footprint of branches and distribution centres in order to make life easy for professional tradespeople and our suppliers, as well as attract, develop and support talented executives to drive solid and sustainable performance management.
Building on a strong foundation
For more than 125 years, we have been supplying builders with building materials and helping build the cities as we know them today.
STARK Group was founded in 1896, but the history of some of our many brands began much earlier. Our German brand, Raab Karcher’s history began as early as 1848. In Norway, Neumann was founded in 1855, the establishment of Beijer in Sweden can be dated back to 1866 and STARK in Finland was established in 1868.
This means that we have been providing builders with products, knowledge and advice for more than 170 years.
STARK Group’s continuous desire to bring innovative and quality building materials to the market and make life easier for professional tradespeople have brought us to where we are today, and together we have created one of Europe’s largest companies in the building materials industry.
Common for us all is our extensive experience, competencies, and knowledge within the field of construction, and today we stand united as a team of teams with shared strategy, ambitions and values.
Winning together
The Group’s philosophy is based on “Local ownership. Global leadership” with a decentralised operating model where the decision-making powers are locally anchored close to the customers. The branches are the beating heart of our company and work as national chains in integrated networks that share head office functions, sourcing, logistics handling, and marketing, enabling significant scale advantages.
We have a strong and solid track record of acquisitions that have enabled the Group to dense its branch network in attractive local markets and to enter attractive new geographies while becoming a more attractive partner for our customers and suppliers.
Driving performance
Winning culture
Sustainability
Meet our brands
STARK Group consists of six business units with underlying brands, each having its own autonomous, national management team.
We compete in the marketplace from leading market positions in the UK, the Nordics, Germany and Austria. We hold no. 1 positions in Germany, Denmark and Sweden, no. 2 positions in the UK and Finland, and no. 3 position in Austria and is a leading regional player in Norway in the categories and segments where it has chosen to compete.
The Group operates under the STARK brand and strong local brand names such as Jewson, Raab Karcher, Muffenrohr, Beijer Byggmaterial and Neumann Bygg, among others.
Meet Anton
We operate under different brands, but share the same symbol: A symbol of action, a symbol of trust.
Man has always created images – of situations, people, animals and daily life. Cave paintings are the first images of people. The situations are typically dance, hunting, war, rituals and work. This is where we find some of the first depictions of human beings engaged in craftsmanship.
The strength of the symbol lies in the fact that we bring the human aspect into the logo itself. Every day we deal with building materials, but first and foremost, we deal with people. The building materials are what bring us together, but the very relationship arises in the meeting between people.
Building a more sustainable tomorrow
Sustainability is an integral part of how we conduct business. We work towards a future where carbon emissions from the construction industry are zero, with the ambition to be the preferred partner for sustainable construction.
We strive to have the best range of eco-labelled and energy-efficient products, help our customers navigate complex and rapidly emerging requirements for reporting lifecycle carbon in their construction projects, as well as provide greener and more efficient distribution solutions through better planning, new technologies and innovative solutions.
Being a proud signatory to the UN Global Compact, STARK Group is mindful of how its business impacts environmentally, socially and economically sustainable developments. Most prominent is the Group’s commitment to the Science Based Targets initiative and the UN Business Ambitions for 1.5°C.
Our management
Our management consists of six executives at the Group headquarters in Copenhagen. Together with CEOs in our six business units, the CEO of STARK Sourcing and the Group General Counsel, they make up our executive committee. The role of our Executive Committee is to drive the strategic direction, development, and performance and to ensure alignment and clear objectives across the Group.
Each committee member has a background and hands-on experience that matches our company's core values, the industry's challenges and opportunities, and our customers' needs.
Søren P. Olesen Group CEO
Sisse F. Rasmussen Group CFO
Our ownership
STARK Group is owned by CVC Capital Partners Fund VII. CVC is a world leader in private equity and credit, and manages funds from over 500 investors from across the world. Many of these are pension plans which include plans for teachers, police officers, nurses and fire fighters.