Snapshot

company: IBMG — Independent Builders Merchant Group
sells: Building materials, timber, plumbing & heating, roofing and electrical supplies to trade and self-build customers via a multi-brand branch network
category: UK multi-branch builders' merchant GROUP (multi-brand, buy-and-build) — a core Catapult / Market My Trade target
model: Buy-and-build group: 20+ acquisitions since 2018 rolled into one integrated company running local merchant brands under a single management team, backed by PE house Cairngorm Capital
size turnover: c.£650m combined revenue; 170+ branches; 2,000+ employees (largest building-materials distributor in the South of England, now expanding into Wales)
brands: Parker Building Supplies, Grant & Stone, Chandlers, Fairalls, Stamco, RGB, Buildit, Pennyhill Timber, Hoppings, plus specialist plumbing & heating, roofing and electrical fascias — 13 merchant brands across five divisions
ownership: Owned by Cairngorm Capital (private equity); IBMG formed 2018 when Cairngorm acquired Chandlers and began the roll-up
hq: South of England (South East / Thames Valley base; estate spans Kent, Essex, London, Sussex, the South West/Cornwall/Devon, Wiltshire, Gloucester and into Wales)

All recent triggers

New CEO Matthew Parker — nearly 20 years in multi-site building-materials distribution (ex-MD of Wolseley Group's Infrastructure division; ex-MD of Travis Perkins' TF Solutions; former Commercial and Finance Director of TP's BSS unit). He knows branch economics and channel margin cold, so a revenue-share pitch needs no education. source
Active buy-and-build estate: 20+ acquisitions since 2018 into 170+ branches and c.£650m revenue — a large, still-growing footprint where a single national partnership lights up every brand and branch at once. source
Multi-brand, single management team across five divisions and 13 merchant brands — one estate-wide decision can roll Market My Trade out group-wide rather than branch-by-branch. source

Pain hypotheses

A PE-backed group under a new CEO is under pressure to show profitable growth and margin — a revenue line that costs nothing to stand up is directly on-strategy
170+ branches serving a huge base of trade customers who mostly under-market themselves — Market My Trade turns that footfall into an attributed, kickback-earning channel with no merchant admin
As a roll-up of 13 local brands, IBMG wants estate-wide initiatives that work across every fascia at once rather than fragmented local schemes — a national partnership fits that operating model
Honest caveat: a new CEO's first 90 days are dominated by the integration/transformation agenda and cost, so this competes for attention. It survives because it is zero cost, zero admin and zero risk — an easy 'yes to explore', not a project that needs budget

ICP-fit score

72/100
None

Sources