William Bird, Kraus, Combine Forces

Greenville, SC, April 29, 2009--William M. Bird and Company Inc. and Kraus Inc. have formed a strategic alliance that has Bird acquiring Kraus’ Greenville-based wholesale flooring distribution operations and Bird taking over Kraus’ sales force in other parts of the Southeast.

“For years, Kraus and Bird have been working together on the operations side of our businesses, to control costs and enhance our service effectiveness,” said Kraus CEO Walter Eckhardt

“For example, we had been operating physical distribution in the same building in Greenville, and we had been sharing a delivery fleet operated by Bird’s TranSouth Logistics division. This new agreement broadens our cooperation to include the sales side, where up until now we had been operating as competitors.”

Kraus’ sales team in Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina will become a specialized unit within William M. Bird. That team will continue to represent flooring brands like Armstrong Hardwood, Tarkett, and Interceramic, along with the Kraus carpet and laminate collections.

“We’ll be joining forces to offer our customers the combined strengths of manufacturing and distribution,” said Dave Mumford, Kraus VP USA Sales.

“Our carpet customers across the Southeast will continue to have access to mill-direct pricing and mill-direct communication, but our reps will offer an increasingly broad range of hard and soft surface products and an unsurpassed order cycle experience.”

William M. Bird and Company Inc. of Charleston, SC, is the largest distributor of flooring products in the Southeast.

Kraus Inc. of Waterloo, Ontario, is a leading manufacturer of commercial and residential carpet and distributor of flooring products. Kraus operates manufacturing facilities at Waterloo, Ontario; Dalton, Ga., and Queensland, Australia.

Related Topics:Tarkett, Armstrong Flooring