Acquisition

18 Jul 2007 07:30

Compagnie de Saint-Gobain18 July 2007 press release July 18, 2007 Norandex Acquisition in the United States Saint-Gobain has announced the acquisition of the Norandex group in the UnitedStates from Owens Corning. Norandex has 2,200 employees and delivered sales of$866 million in 2006 split into two activities: building materials distributionand vinyl siding manufacturing. The Norandex merchant brand, which will be integrated within Saint-Gobain'sBuilding Distribution sector, boasts a network of 153 specialized distributionbranches dealing mainly in exterior building products (siding, doors, windows,etc.). Norandex ranks among the top 15 US building merchants in a highlyfragmented market. Norandex has also 3 plants used to manufacture vinyl siding, which aredistributed by its own branches as well as by other independent distributors.The Norandex plants will be consolidated with the existing production facilitiesoperated by the exterior building solutions division of Saint-Gobain'sConstruction Products sector in the United States, and will enable the Group tounlock significant synergies. The completion of this transaction, which values Norandex at an enterprise valueof $343 million (net of cash tax benefits), is subject to the agreement of thecompetition authorities in the United States. In 2006, Saint-Gobain's Building Distribution sector delivered sales of €17.6billion. Its 67,000 employees operate a network of almost 4,000 sales outlets in24 countries. It is currently Europe's leading distributor of building materialsand the world's number one distributor of tiles. Its main brands are Point.P,Jewson, Raab Karcher, Dahl, Lapeyre la maison... and La Plateforme duBatiment. Investor Relations Department Florence Triou-Teixeira Tel.: +33 1 47 62 45 19 Alexandre Etuy Tel.: +33 1 47 62 37 15 Fax : +33 1 47 62 50 62 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange