AHF Products announced its acquisition of certain assets of Parterre Flooring Systems, a leader in the commercial luxury vinyl tile segment of the flooring industry, on January 8, 2021. We connected with AHF President and CEO Brian Carson and Ralph Grogan, former Parterre CEO and new AHF team member, to learn about the acquisition.
Q: How did this deal come about?
Carson: As you know, we entered the commercial market last year with Hartco Contract, and with our distributors, we're off to a fantastic start. When Parterre became available, we looked at it and said, "There's a first-class brand with fantastic relationships in the market." It was just a wonderful opportunity to accelerate our entry into the commercial market.
Q: Why was it the right time for Parterre to make the transition?
Grogan: Parterre has been in business 30 years. It's a great company. One of the challenges we had is that we just had LVT, and as you know in the flooring business, more people are bundling products. We do a lot of multifamily work, and some of it is LVT, but a lot of multifamily work has wood products in with it. Some of our customers would prefer to maybe go to a vendor that has one-stop shopping for everything. This really allows us to increase our product portfolio.
Q. Last October, AHF Products launched Hartco Contract, a line of resilient flooring for light commercial, multi-family and manufactured housing installations. Describe how Hartco Contract and Parterre will work together.
Carson: I'm just thrilled to have Ralph leading the business for us here and helping me understand where we can make investments to bring it along faster and see what I can do to support him and the team. We are super excited about this, and I think it's just going to be wonderful for our customers. Their relationships in the market are going to naturally introduce Hartco Contract to those end-users, and that's just a win for our distributors, for us, and we couldn't be more pleased with the acquisition.
This is a good deal for our customers. This is a good deal for our distributors. This is a good deal for Parterre. It's a good deal. We're in a good position to invest during this time in commercial, so when the sun really comes out and starts shining, we want to be there with the right products and the right placement and the right relationships.
Q: What's your outlook for the resilient commercial category this year?
Carson: All businesses are cyclical and commercial—for variety of reasons—is going to be in a down cycle. But that's exactly when you want to be placing your bets and making your investments in the business. We're a small enough and nimble enough as a company at this point to choose not to participate in the malaise, and we're going to grow this year for sure. The market will begin to find its sea legs, I think, in the back half of the year, and then continue to strengthen from there.
