Cainz buys wood-materials trader Sonitec, pushing into building-site logistics

Cainz has signed an agreement to acquire 100 per cent of Sonitec, a Tokyo-based trader of auxiliary building materials for wooden houses, the home-centre chain said. The stock-transfer deal, signed September 18 with Sonitec's current owner, the NMC IV Investment Partnership fund, is due to close October 19.

Sonitec, founded in 1967 and led by chief executive Shu Miyake, employs 266 people including part-time and dispatch staff and has capital of ¥66.4 million, according to Cainz. The company's business is estimating, ordering, and managing stock and delivery for wood-building materials at construction sites — the logistics layer that sits between a materials supplier and a building site, rather than retail shelving.

Cainz framed the deal as a way to tighten its supply chain across new-build and renovation work, saying it wants to improve productivity on construction sites at a time when the industry faces a persistent shortage of skilled labour. No purchase price was disclosed.

The move takes Cainz further from the shop floor than its recent history suggests. Japan's home-centre chains built their scale selling DIY materials and tools directly to households; Sonitec's business is upstream of that, selling and distributing materials to contractors and building sites. Owning that logistics layer gives Cainz more control over how quickly, and how cheaply, wood-building materials reach a job site — a lever that matters more as construction labour gets scarcer and slower deliveries cost more in wasted site-days.