The Company
Founded in 1866 and managed by current ownership since 1987, Deering Lumber, Inc. (“Deering”) is the leading professional lumber and building material supplier focused on single family residential construction and renovation in southern Maine. Headquartered in Biddeford, Maine, the company operates 3 separate locations servicing all of Southern Maine. The company was built on and maintains deep relationships with high quality custom residential home builders and remodelers and has a reputation for customer service and high quality job site delivery.
The Challenge
After more than 60 years of ownership within the Armstrong family, C.D. Armstrong wanted to embark on a thoughtful and deliberate search for the next steward of the Deering brand and its employee family. The shareholder wanted to find an advisory partner that would patiently walk through each step of preparing for and implementing a transaction process and that could understand and execute on his goals of finding a new majority owner that could sustain and grow the valuable and long-term customer relationships, continue to support and retain the “family-like” employee base and be a good citizen in the Southern Maine community. To add an additional area of complexity, the shareholder had specific charitable goals he wanted to achieve in connection with the closing.
The Solution
Over a 2 year period, Peloton worked with Mr. Armstrong and his other advisors to think through and fully understand the transaction process and to prepare himself and the company for a transition. Peloton then embarked on a 7 month competitive process including, large publicly traded strategic investors, regional strategic investors as well as select private equity firms with experience in the lumber industry. Ultimately, Deering selected U.S. LBM, a leading distributor of specialty building products in the United States. U.S. LBM combines the scale and operational advantages of a national platform with a local go-to-market strategy through its national network of locations across the country.
The combination of Deering with US LBM, allows Deering to maintain its culture and workforce in Southern Maine while providing a national scale that will benefit its customers.
With the guidance of his advisors, Mr. Armstrong was also able to facilitate a substantial charitable gift to The Maine Community Foundation in connection with the closing.
They listened well and customized and built their services around my goals, they’re all-in with helping clients.
C.D. Armstrong, President of Deering Lumber
