Our company, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, is a leading manufacturer and
distributor of building materials. Our focus is on delivering innovative, high-quality
commodity and specialty building products to retail, wholesale, home building
and industrial customers. Our products are used primarily in new home construction,
repair and remodeling, and manufactured housing.
Business Segments
We operate in four segments: Oriented Strand Board (OSB), Composite Wood Products,
Plastic Building Products and Engineered Wood Products (EWP). In the past, we
also operated a market pulp segment. The OSB and EWP segments are generally
represented as our "commodity" products, while the Composite Wood
and Plastic Building products represent our "specialty" products.
In general, our businesses are affected by the level of housing starts; the
level of home repairs; the availability and cost of financing; changes in industry
capacity; changes in the prices we pay for raw materials and energy; and other
operating costs.
Our sales and marketing efforts are primarily focused on traditional two-step
distribution, professional building products dealers, home centers, third-party
wholesale buying groups and other retailers. The wholesale distribution channel
includes a variety of specialized and broad-line wholesale distributors and
dealers focused primarily on the supply of products for use by professional
builders and contractors. The retail distribution channel includes large retail
chains catering to the do-it-yourself (DIY) and repair and remodeling markets
as well as smaller independent retailers.
Customers
We seek to maintain a broad customer base and a balanced approach to national
distribution through both wholesale and retail channels. Because a significant
portion of our sales are from OSB that is a commodity product sold primarily
on the basis of price and availability, we are not dependent on any one customer.
Our principal customers include the following:
Wholesale distribution companies, which supply building materials to retailers
on a regional, state or local basis;
Two-step distributors who provide building materials to smaller retailers,
contractors and others;
Building materials professional dealers, that specialize in sales to professional
builders, remodeling firms and trade contractors that are involved in residential
home construction and light commercial building;
Retail home centers, that provide access to consumer markets with a broad selection
of home improvement materials and increasingly serve professional builders,
remodelers and trade contractors;
Manufactured housing producers, who design, construct and distribute prefabricated
residential and light commercial structures, including fully manufactured, modular
and panelized structures, for consumer and professional markets.
Raw Materials
Wood fiber is the primary raw material used in most of our operations, and
the primary source of wood fiber is timber.
Competitors
The building products industry is highly competitive. We compete internationally
with several thousand forest and building products firms, ranging from very
large, fully integrated firms to smaller enterprises that may manufacture only
one or a few items. We also compete less directly with firms that manufacture
substitutes for wood building products. Some competitors have substantially
greater financial and other resources than we do that could, in some instances,
give them a competitive advantage over us.
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