https://thewest.com.au/business/herd-on-the-terrace/herd-on-the-t...

https://thewest.com.au/business/her...s-score-at-len-buckeridges-bgc-ng-b882045406z
Herd on the Terrace: Wesfarmers’ next big — maybe, possibly, perhaps — score at Len Buckeridge’s BGC
The West Australian
Fri, 22 October 2021 3:05PM


Heard on the Terrace ….BGC Illustration: Don Lindsay Credit: Don Lindsay/The West Australian

Rumours about a Wesfarmers buyout of the BGC building materials, construction and home building empire just won’t go away.

Some of the Bull’s best-loved gossip mongers have been in our ears this week claiming that Wesfarmers’ deal-makers are looking over BGC, whose interests include the State’s biggest brick maker.

There’s a couple of factors fuelling the speculation.
BGC chairman Neil Hamilton is on the record as saying the Buckeridge family is looking to revive a sales push for the group now that things have picked up in the WA market after a sustained downturn.
Also, the potential $1 billion purchase price is well within Wesfarmers’ reach and it’s the sort of integrated — building products through to construction — gem that may appeal to Wesfarmers.

However, it is also true that perhaps the building materials side is too exposed to WA, meaning it would take quite a lick of cash and aggression to scale it up nationally.
And Wesfarmers is as disciplined as any company when it comes to only buying businesses it believes can meet its demanding double-digit returns.

The official word from the group is the usual “no comment”.
To be fair, its business development team is always looking over a multitude of potential deals, almost all of which never see the light of day.
But lest we forget Wesfarmers turned a business once controlled by Perth’s Bunnings family into a national icon.
Never say never — and remember you read it first here.