Lanoga sold to Boston family

Laird Norton, a big family-owned Seattle company, agreed Friday to sell its building-materials business to another family enterprise — Fidelity Investments in Boston.

Yes, the mutual-fund company.

Laird Norton's business, called Lanoga, meshes nicely with a smaller building-materials company owned by Fidelity Capital, which invests on behalf of the parent company, Fidelity Investments, rather than its mutual fund and other clients.

Ownership of Fidelity Investments is divided almost equally between employees and members of the Johnson family of Boston. Fidelity's chief executive, Edward C. Johnson III, is the son of the founder.

Lanoga is owned by more than 400 members of the Laird and Norton families, descendants of two brothers and a cousin who started the parent company more than 150 years ago in Winona, Minn.

After moving to the Northwest in the early 1900s, they helped found Weyerhaeuser, Potlatch and the company that became Boise Cascade.

Fidelity can provide Lanoga with more money for growth than Laird Norton could, said Jeff Vincent, chief executive of Laird Norton.

"We're pleased that Fidelity provides the opportunity to continue Lanoga's long tradition of private family ownership," Vincent said.

Together, the companies, which sell primarily to contractors and professional builders, will have about 420 locations in 38 states. Projected 2006 revenue is nearly $5 billion.

Lanoga is the larger company with more than 11,000 employees and 2005 revenue of $3.1 billion. Laird Norton does not disclose companywide revenue.

Lanoga has about 20 employees at its Redmond headquarters, which Fidelity plans to keep intact. It also employs about 2,400 at Lumbermens locations in the Puget Sound region.

Lanoga has several other brands, including Spanard Builders Supply in Alaska, Home Lumber in Colorado and Dixieline Lumber in Southern California.

Fidelity's building-materials company, Strober Organization, employs about 2,000 people in regions that do not overlap with Lanoga, including the East Coast. It will keep its headquarters in New Jersey.

Eileen Newman, a spokeswoman for Fidelity Capital, said the company likes Lanoga's management and its strategic fit.

"There are some synergies that both companies can take advantage of, but we have no plans right now to integrate them," she said.

Lanoga's acquisition, for which terms were not disclosed, does not include Lanoga's substantial real-estate holdings, which will remain at Laird Norton.

The Seattle company also owns Laird Norton Tyee, a wealth-advisory and consulting firm that caters to individuals and families, and Wentworth, Hauser and Violich, which has a broader customer base including pension funds and endowments.

Together those firms have about 145 employees in Seattle and San Francisco and $10 billion in assets under management.

Melissa Allison: 206-464-3312 or mallison@seattletimes.com