Why This Matters to Distributors: Core & Main is stepping up acquisitions, branch expansion, and development of specialized businesses including data centers, water treatment, smart utilities, and fire protection. Several potential acquisitions have moved into due diligence, while the distributor has opened seven locations this fiscal year and expects a record number of new branches in 2026.
Core & Main is accelerating its acquisition and expansion strategy, with several potential deals moving into due diligence and the distributor targeting faster-growing markets including data centers, water treatment plants, smart utilities, and fire protection.
The St. Louis-based waterworks and infrastructure distributor said acquisition opportunities have increased significantly during the past three to six months following a quiet period for deals. Core & Main has opened seven locations this fiscal year and expects a record number of new branches in 2026.
At the same time, the company is using its national branch network and local customer relationships to pursue larger and more complex infrastructure projects that can extend over several years. The expansion comes as Core & Main continues to grow sales and net income despite weakness in portions of the construction market.
Second-quarter sales increased 2.5% year over year to $2.15 billion from $2.09 billion. Net income rose 6.4% to $150 million from $141 million a year earlier. For the first six months of fiscal 2026, sales increased 1.3% year over year to $4.06 billion from $4 billion. Year-to-date net income increased 6.9% to $263 million from $246 million.
CEO Mark Witkowski said Core & Main is seeing acquisition candidates generated directly by its own business-development team as well as companies being formally offered for sale. “We’ve seen that, I’d say, pick up pretty significantly here over the last three to six months,” Witkowski told analysts during Core & Main’s fiscal second-quarter earnings call. “We’ve advanced now several, I’d say, through the LOI stage.”
Later in the call, Witkowski said several potential transactions had moved beyond letters of intent and into due diligence. “We’re making some really good progress there,” he said.
Acquisition Pipeline Picks Up
Core & Main is not significantly changing the types of companies it wants to buy. The distributor continues to target businesses that strengthen its core waterworks and fire protection operations, extend its geographic reach, or add products and services that can be sold to existing customers.
Witkowski said Core & Main continues to pursue smaller acquisitions that fit its existing waterworks and fire protection businesses while also looking for complementary products and services. “No change in focus there and really, really like what we’re seeing,” Witkowski said.
Potential deals range from smaller companies that can be integrated into existing operations to larger strategic acquisitions. “These opportunities span a range of transaction sizes from complementary bolt-on acquisitions to larger strategic transactions,” Witkowski said.
Core & Main also is positioning itself as a buyer for independent distributors whose owners want access to the resources of a larger organization while maintaining the local relationships that built their businesses.
Witkowski said many potential sellers are looking for a long-term partner that can provide additional resources, expand their product offerings, and create new opportunities while preserving local customer relationships. “For Core & Main, these acquisitions expand the solutions we can offer customers, help simplify increasingly complex projects and create opportunities to deepen customer relationships,” he said.
The acquisition strategy is designed to do more than add sales. Core & Main is looking for businesses that can fill geographic gaps, add specialized products, or bring technical capabilities that can be offered across its existing customer base.
Walker Deal Expands Hawaii Business
Core & Main already has completed another acquisition since the end of the quarter. The company acquired Walker Industries, a Hawaii provider of storm drainage products. Witkowski said the acquisition broadens Core & Main’s product offering in Hawaii and complements its existing operations.
Management views Walker as an example of the opportunities now emerging in the acquisition pipeline. Core & Main historically has targeted acquisitions capable of adding about 2% to 4% to annual sales growth, although results can vary from year to year.
Recent acquisition activity has been below that range because fewer businesses were available, Witkowski said. That is changing. “We’ve got several that kind of advanced through that LOI stage, and we’re in diligence now,” he said.
Witkowski said the increased deal activity could position Core & Main for stronger acquisition-driven growth in 2027.
Seven New Locations Expand the Network
Acquisitions are only one part of the expansion. Core & Main has opened seven locations so far, this fiscal year, including three in the western U.S., two in the Southeast and two in Canada.
“We continue to invest in the business organically,” Witkowski said. “You’ve seen that through the greenfield additions.”
Core & Main expects to open a record number of new locations this year. The company evaluates potential markets based on their size, infrastructure demand, customer needs, and its existing competitive position.
The strategy is intended to put inventory, salespeople, and technical expertise closer to customers while increasing Core & Main’s presence in markets where management believes it has room to expand. “While greenfield locations require investment and time to mature, they allow us to strengthen local relationships, expand service capabilities and build market density over time,” Witkowski said.
The branch strategy also supports Core & Main’s push into larger projects. A broader local network gives the distributor more relationships with the municipalities, utilities and contractors that perform the infrastructure work.
Data Center Business Nearly Doubles
Data centers are emerging as one of Core & Main’s biggest new business-development opportunities. The distributor’s data center-related business nearly doubled from a year earlier during the second quarter.
Data centers have grown from a low-single-digit percentage of Core & Main’s total business to the mid-single-digit range. Within nonresidential construction, they now account for a high-single-digit percentage of business, president Brad Cowles said. “We’ve seen our data center project run rate … double this quarter year-over-year,” Cowles said.
The opportunity begins before the data center itself is built. Core & Main supplies water, wastewater and storm drainage infrastructure used to prepare and serve data center sites. As construction progresses, the company also can supply fire protection systems.
Data center construction can generate additional business beyond the project site. Large developments may require municipalities and utilities to expand water and wastewater capacity, while new commercial and residential development around those facilities can create additional infrastructure demand. “The impact extends beyond the data center itself,” Witkowski said. “These large-scale developments often require municipalities and utilities to expand water and wastewater capacity.”
Cowles said Core & Main’s branch network gives the distributor an advantage because much of the underground infrastructure work associated with data centers is performed by local contractors. “It plays so well into our strength because we’ve got branches everywhere,” Cowles said.
When a data center is built, he added, “the people that are putting the underground water utilities or treatment plant into the area are local, and we own those relationships.”
Data Centers Create a Second Water Opportunity
Core & Main also sees another opportunity in the additional demands data centers can place on local water systems. The amount of water required varies depending on how a data center is designed and cooled, but Cowles said every facility creates some demand for water infrastructure. “Regardless, they need water,” he said.
Some communities have sufficient water and treatment capacity to support new data centers. Others may need to expand municipal systems, build new treatment capacity, or develop private water infrastructure.
That can create a second round of business for Core & Main beyond the original data center project. Cowles said the company sees that as a broader effect of data center development because the facilities can increase municipal water demand while also attracting other businesses and development to the surrounding area.
For Core & Main, that creates potential demand across underground water infrastructure, wastewater systems, storm drainage, treatment facilities, and fire protection.
Treatment Plants Become a Larger Business
Water treatment plants are another market Core & Main is targeting for expansion. Treatment plant projects now represent a mid-single-digit percentage of total company sales and posted double-digit growth during the second quarter.
Core & Main is adding products, technical expertise, and project support capabilities to supply a larger portion of individual treatment plant projects. “We continue to expand our product offering, technical expertise and project support capabilities to support a larger share of treatment plant projects,” Witkowski said.
The strategy also connects directly to acquisitions. “With significant runway ahead, we see meaningful opportunities to grow this business through both organic expansion and strategic acquisitions,” Witkowski said.
That gives Core & Main another potential category for dealmaking as it looks for companies that can add specialized products, technical expertise, or customer relationships in water treatment.
Smart Utility Projects Build Toward 2027
Core & Main also is building a pipeline of larger smart utility projects involving meters, software, services, and system integration. Cowles said the company has “a tremendous backlog,” although large municipal projects can take considerable time to move from an award to full installation because of pilot programs, system integration, and other preliminary work. “We do continue to win some projects, medium, large that are going to give us some exciting execution, we think, starting later in the year into 2027 for sure,” Cowles said.
Among the largest is a Miami-Dade County smart meter project. Cowles described it as what Core & Main believes is the largest project ever undertaken in the market. The company expects some activity late this year before installation accelerates in 2027.
The project is expected to run for about five years and eventually involves 100,000-meter installations and connections annually. “It’s a pretty strong number, 100,000 meters being installed and connected to the systems per year is approximately what we would expect,” Cowles said.
Core & Main also recently won a significant smart utility project with Connecticut Water Co. “We’ve become a really strong metering smart utility player in our Northeast region, which has really paired up perfectly with our core waterworks distribution growth in the area,” Cowles said.
The larger projects illustrate another part of Core & Main’s strategy: using existing municipal relationships to expand from traditional waterworks distribution into technology, software, and related services.
Fire Protection Adds Another Growth Avenue
Fire protection is another business where Core & Main is expanding geographically. Second-quarter fire protection sales increased 14%, supported by higher sales volume and steel prices. Management said the company also is gaining business from competitors.
Witkowski said Core & Main previously had geographic gaps in its fire protection network and has been adding locations to fill them. “We’ve added some really good locations here over the last couple of years that are benefiting from share gains,” he said.
The gains do not come from one group of competitors. “I believe we’ve been taking share really from, I’d say, various other competitors across the board of all sizes,” Witkowski said.
The fire protection strategy follows the same basic model Core & Main is using elsewhere: fill geographic gaps, expand local capabilities, and use the broader network to win more business from existing and new customers.
Building Growth Beyond the Broader Market
Taken together, Core & Main’s initiatives show a distributor trying to generate growth through acquisitions, geographic expansion, and specialized infrastructure markets rather than waiting for a broad construction recovery.
Residential development remains weak, while traditional light commercial construction continues to be soft. Municipal water infrastructure has remained comparatively stable, and Core & Main is directing more of its business-development effort toward treatment plants, data centers, smart utilities, and fire protection.
Those markets increasingly overlap. A data center, for example, can generate demand for underground water and wastewater products, storm drainage, fire protection systems, and new municipal treatment capacity. Acquisitions can add products, technical expertise, and geographic coverage, while new branches bring those capabilities closer to contractors, utilities, and municipalities.
Core & Main’s strategy is to use its existing local relationships as the foundation for selling more products and services into larger, more complicated projects. Witkowski said business activity strengthened as the second quarter ended, with momentum improving in July and continuing into August. “We feel really good about what’s in the pipeline,” he said.
The acquisition pipeline may be the most immediate indicator of what comes next. With several potential transactions now in due diligence, Core & Main could enter 2027 with a larger branch network, additional acquired businesses and a greater share of its business tied to specialized infrastructure projects. “Large project activity is expanding, and we are seeing a growing set of opportunities to strengthen our business, both organically and through M&A,” Witkowski said.
Do not miss any content from Distribution Strategy Group. Join our list.
Share this article:
