Heading for the top three

The Finnish Kesko Group operates in eight countries. In the building and home improvement trade, it not only caters for consumers and project customers but also professional tradesmen. The last group in particular, should ensure growthOne of the Nordic retail groups made it under the European DIY retailers top ten: In the latest Dähne Verlag rankings, which are based on company turnover, the Kesko Group from Finland made sixth place with sales of € 2.370 bn. In the European building and home improvement market, Kesko is the fifth largest operator - and aims to become one of the top three.The decisive factor was the announcement of the takeover of the specialist trade company Onninen in January 2016. As a result, the K Group's building and home improvement trade had an annual turnover of around € 4.3 bn. Whereas in the past the ratio of business customers to project and consumer customers was 40 to 60 per cent (with sales of € 2.9 bn for the whole K Group's building and home improvement trade), everything has now been turned around: € 2.7 bn or 60 per cent of the business falls to B2B customers, the remaining € 1.6 bn to private customers (calculated on the basis of figures from 2014). To date, Kesko has run its operations under five brand names: K-rauta in Finland, Sweden, Estonia and Russia, Rautia in Finland, Byggmaker in Norway, Senukai in Lithuania and Oma in Belarus. In addition, there is Rautakesko B2B service that serves large business customers in the sector in Finland.With this portfolio of store brands and formats, Kesko targets three customer groups: consumer customers, project customers, i. e. home builders and renovators, and B2B customers; the last group covers building firms, contractors and generally companies involved in the field of maintenance, property maintenance, industry and the public sector.Not content with the current fifth place in the European building and home improvement trade rankings, Kesko strategists in Vantaa are setting their sights higher and aiming for third place. "Our strategic objective is to increase the building and technical trade," says Terho Kalliokoski, the President for the home improvement and speciality goods trade business division.The company plans to reach this target through a massive strengthening of its B2B sector, in particular through the takeover of Onninen, which still needs the approval of the competition authorities. Onninen specialises in the trade of HEPAC (heating, plumbing and air…