French Giant Snaps Up Jp Corry For £75M

Belfast-based builders' merchant JP Corry has been bought by Saint-Gobain in a £75m deal. One of the longest established & best-known retail names in N Ireland, JP Corry operates 14 stores in Ulster, mainly under its own name. In 1999, it doubled its turnover with the £30m acquisition of RK Timber, a GB-based timber supplier. RK now supplies timber to the building trade from 3 locations in Britain. Based on Belfast's Springfield Road, the company also owns a number of outlets in the Republic which operate under the Coen name. Founded by Bernard Coen in 1888, Coen Group was a family-owned business until it was acquired by JP Corry in 1997. It now has 3 outlets in the south & also has a substantial timber merchant, D Kantor, based in Dublin.