Stark Group gets sold for a little more than €1bn to private equity group Lone Star.

Stark Group, a Copenhagen, Denmark based company that is the largest retailer and distributor of building materials in the Nordic region, announced that it has a new owner as a result of a EUR 1.025bn ($1.2bn) transaction.

The new shareholder is the capital fund Lone Star, which has acquired the company Stark in Denmark and Greenland, Stark Finland, Beijer Byggmaterial in Sweden and Neumann Bygg in Norway. The transaction was made with the existing shareholder, listed UK-based business Ferguson.

Stark Group and Ferguson decided, following a major strategic analysis, to initiate a sales process announced in April 2017. The analysis clarified that there's too little in common between Ferguson's core business in the plumbing industry and Stark Group's significant profile as distributor and retailer of building materials .

Lone Star is a US private equity fund from Dallas, Texas founded in 1995. Since the mid-2000s, Lone Star has increased its investment in the Eurozone with a particular focus on developed markets and the acquisition of Stark Group seems to be a good fit.

Stark Group, led by CEO Søren P. Olesen, is the largest distributor and retailer of building materials across Scandinavia, providing a wide range of services to major contractors, builders, consumers and industries. Stark Group consists of: STARK in Denmark, Neumann Bygg in Norway, Beijer Byggmaterial in Sweden and STARK in Finland. The company has experienced a growth of 5.4% in the current business year and an improvement of the bottom line of 28%.