Project Round-Up
USA ITALY
The Home Depot, an American home improvement retailer, has entered into a definitive agreement for its specialty trade distribution subsidiary, SRS Distribution, to acquire GMS, a leading North American specialty building products distributor. The Home Depot’ s growth strategy includes growing its share of wallet with professional contractors( Pros), and the company is building differentiated offerings and capabilities to better serve Pros across their entire project – from large, complex jobs to smaller renovations and repairs. In 2024, the company acquired SRS, establishing The Home Depot as a leading specialty trade distributor across multiple verticals including roofing, landscaping and pool supplies.
CampariGroup has reached an agreement to sell Cinzano vermouth and sparkling wines to the private Italian spirits company, Caffo Group 1915, the owner of the bitter brand Vecchio
Amaro del Capo. The sale also includes Frattina grappa and sparkling wine business. The transaction marks a significant development in Campari Group’ s announced strategy and commitment to portfolio streamlining via disposal of non-core brands to enhance commercial and marketing focus on core spirits business, overall operational simplification and financial deleverage.
UNITED KINGDOM
Leading omnichannel tech retailer, Currys, continues to commit to colleague safety, announcing its largest ever annual investment in store safety measures to help keep colleagues safe and deter shoplifters. Currys is implementing a wide range of new technologies and safety programmes, which represent the company’ s largest ever safety investment programme. These include upgraded specification Public Display Monitors in highrisk stores, trialling and rolling out new innovative approaches to product security, investment in intelligence collection and analysis, and increased spend on guarding and surveillance.
AUSTRALIA
The Australian Competitive and Consumer Commission is warning consumers about the operators of four websites allegedly misrepresenting themselves as local businesses, also known as‘ ghost stores’. It is alleged these four ghost store operators are harming consumers by making false representations that they are local Australian businesses, imminently closing down and selling high-quality clothing and footwear products, when they are instead based overseas, not imminently closing down and are drop-shipping low-quality products. The ACCC has issued Public Warning Notices to warn consumers about specific conduct by the operators of the following four websites: everly-melbourne. com, willowandgraceadelaide. com, sophie-claire. com and doublebayboutique. com. www. intelligentretail. tech 33