On Aug. 1, the very same day that Chip Hornsby officially assumed his new position as group chief executive at Wolseley plc, Reading, England, following the retirement of Charlie Banks, Ferguson acquired substantially all of the assets of Palermo Supply Co., Palermo Plumbing Center and Palermo Wholesale Supply from those companies. Palermo Supply Co., Bergenfield, NJ, a plumbing and heating distributor with operations in northern New Jersey and the greater New York areas, was ranked No. 82 in the 2006 SUPPLY HOUSE TIMES Premier listing of wholesalers. According to Wolseley, parent company of Ferguson, Palermo had sales of $82.9 million for the year ended Dec. 31, 2005.

Also on that date, Ferguson acquired the assets of Water Works Supplies, based in Jeffersonville, IN, from James B. Taylor, founder, owner, president and CEO. WWSI distributes water works products and has operations in southern Indiana, central eastern Kentucky and southern Illinois. According to Wolseley, it had sales of $29.5 million for the year ended June 30, 2005.

In other news, sister company Stock Building Supply acquired certain assets of Martin Architectural Products, based in North Carolina, from Mike Martin. Martin is a fabricator and supplier of architectural products for commercial and institutional projects. According to Wolseley, the company had sales of $26.4 million for the year ended Dec. 31, 2005.

Wolseley also acquired three businesses in Europe: Depont Materiaux, a distributor of heavyside products with one branch in the East of France; Marmon Keystone Anbuma, a distributor of stainless and carbon steel pipe in Belgium, France and the Netherlands; and Lunts Heath Ltd., a single branch distributor of building and paving materials based in Cheshire in the United Kingdom.