FAQs

Our product and geographic diversity, our global presence in terms of sourcing and procurement, the fact that we are a world leading company and being number one or two in most of our markets.

To distribute construction materials and services primarily to professional contractors, industry and government in Europe and North America.

Wolseley creates enhanced value for all stakeholders by leveraging the considerable strengths of its individual businesses.

As at 31 January 2010, Wolseley operated in 25 countries, namely: UK, USA, France, Canada, Italy, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Slovak Republic, Poland, Romania, San Marino, Panama, Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago, Mexico, Barbados and Greenland.

We seek supply chain partners throughout the world. We seek to harmonise product quality and prices across our market areas through global trading and preferred supplier relationships and search the world for low cost country sourcing to bring value to our customers.

Product sourcing and logistics. Product sourcing is about maximising growth and margin through product and supplier management by being the preferred channel to market for our suppliers. Logistics looks at optimisation of product and information flow, from the supplier gates to the customer delivery point.

Our name is well-known amongst our investor community. We are a Fortune Global 500 company and we are in the UK FTSE 100. Our name will not be universally familiar to all of our customers, however. This is because our strength is to operate leading national businesses in home markets. These are strong local brands that continually exceed customer expectations through wider product ranges and superior service. The brands include Ferguson, Bathstore and Tobler, to name but a few. More details can be seen in the 'Our businesses' area of this website.

This decision is entirely consistent with our objective of simplification as it reduces costs and complexity without in any way detracting from the integrity of our governance and control procedures. The process of deregistering has been simplified following the new rules introduced by the SEC in June 2008.

As just over two per cent of our shares are held in the ADR programme, we do not believe it is appropriate from a cost and administrative perspective to continue with the reporting obligations under the Exchange Act. Our business strategy remains the same and North America is, and will continue to be, a key market for Wolseley; it currently accounts for approximately 40% of Group revenue.

Our head office address is at Parkview 1220, Arlington Business Park, Theale, Nr Reading RG7 4GA in the United Kingdom.