Wesfarmers will fold businesses Blackwoods and Workwear Group, which includes brands like Hard Yakka, into Bunnings Group. · Source: Getty/Facebook/Hard Yakka
Bunnings is set to become even bigger following a new mega merger with two iconic Aussie businesses. The hardware giant has been crowned the most trusted brand in Australia and it is hoped the new move will provide customers with even more choice and a better customer experience.
Parent company Wesfarmers announced it will be transferring its businesses Blackwoods and Workwear Group into Bunnings Group from July 1. Blackwoods is the country’s biggest supplier of industrial and safety products, while Workwear Group is behind iconic tradie brands like Hard Yakka and KingGee.
Wesfarmers chief financial officer Anthony Gianotti said the two businesses held “market-leading positions”, with the move expected to drive incremental sales and create cost efficiencies.
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“With this transition, we see a significant opportunity to leverage greater scale and capabilities to further enhance the customer experience,” he said.
“Working more closely with Bunnings will also unlock growth in the small and medium sized customer segments.”
Bunnings managing director Mike Schneider said the tradition would give it greater access to Blackwoods’ product range and national fulfilment capabilities.
“Customers will have more choice, better product availability and an enhanced customer experience,” he said.
“Blackwoods and Workwear Group will continue to operate as stand-alone businesses and will retain their customer-facing brands within the Bunnings Group, with Blackwoods continuing to service large enterprise customers.”
Blackwoods is the country’s biggest supplier of industrial and safety products. · Source: Facebook/Blackwoods
Blackwoods was founded in 1878 and now operates six national distribution centres and more than 45 branches across cities, rural, regional and remote locations.
Workwear Group’s origins date back to 1926 when the KingGee brand was established in Sydney. Its brands, which also include NNT and Workwear Group Uniforms, are stocked in more than 1,000 retail outlets nationwide.
Wesfarmers does not expect any material one-off costs associated with the transition. The businesses will be included in Bunnings’ results for the first half of the 2027 financial year.
Bunnings named most trusted brand
Bunnings was once again named Australia’s most trusted brand in Roy Morgan’s latest brand rankings released on Wednesday. It’s the 10th consecutive quarter it has taken out top spot, beating out Aldi and Kmart in second and third place.
Commonwealth Bank, the country’s biggest lender, and tech giant Apple rounded out the top five most trusted.
Optus was crowned the nation’s most distrusted brand, as last year’s fatal Triple Zero outage continues to damage the telco’s reputation. It was followed by Facebook/Meta in second place, and Temu in third spot.
The two supermarket giants Woolworths and Coles came in fourth and fifth most distrusted, with the findings coming after the Federal Court found Coles misled consumers with its ‘Down Down’ promotion.
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