NEWS EXTRA INSIDE THE FORTIS MINDSET
Fiona Russell Horne sat down with Fortis to talk scale, commitment and the future of independent merchants
Fortis board members, from left: Phil Walford, David Berry, Will O’Meara.
biennial Building and Timber Conference, the message was that Fortis felt it had reached an ideal size. “Then new members came along who were the right fit,” he says. “Fortis is a tool. It exists to facilitate value for members and suppliers. If a business can add value, we’ll look at it. But the criteria are much more formal now. Simply exceeding a turnover threshold only gets you to the starting point.”
Berry emphasises that the group is not actively recruiting. “People beat a path to our door,” he says. “But almost none meet the threshold. That said, there are still prospective members who go through the process and could add value. It’s about fit, about mindset, contribution, commitment.”
WHEN DAVID BERRY talks about Fortis, the independent builders merchant buying group he is the current chairman of, he stresses commitment, shared responsibility and a mindset that values long-term value over short-term volume. He’s also the managing director of C&W Berry, one of the UK’s largest independent merchants, and firmly believes Fortis’ strength comes not just from its size - £2.55bn in turnover across 43 members - but from the way they choose to operate. “There are 43 legal entities, but really 41 companies,” he explains. “That ratio of turnover to number of companies is significant. It’s how we can run the group the way we do, without employing full-time negotiators, without layers of bureaucracy. We run it ourselves.”
The ethos of ‘run by the members, for the members’ is the Fortis foundation stone, with decisions made by the people who ultimately have to live with them. “Because members are involved
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in the decision-making process, they’re far more likely to support the agreements once they’re in place,” he says. “That’s why we see 75% of all purchases into Fortis members coming through Fortis agreements.”
The figure becomes even more striking when you factor in thosecategories where Fortis does not negotiate centrally: imported timber, aggregates from local quarries, and other regionally sourced materials. “Once you overlay those local agreements, the commitment pushes into the 90% category,” Berry says. “Where Fortis has an agreement in place, members support it. That’s the value.”
Fortis relies on 83 individuals from member businesses to negotiate agreements, including nine category directors who Berry says shoulder significant responsibility. It’s no small challenge.
“These are people with day jobs,” he says. “On top of that, they take on another job, that of
negotiating agreements on behalf of the group. They’re the reason the model works.”
The approach is demanding, but Berry believes it creates a level of ownership and expertise that cannot be replicated by a centralised buying office. “It’s not just about getting the best deal,” he says. “It’s about understanding the category, understanding the supplier, and understanding what the group needs. That only happens when the people doing the negotiating are the same people running the businesses.”
Fortis has grown in the last year, when Tippers, John A Stephens, Robert Price and James Burrell moved over from the CBA buying group. But Berry is clear: growth is not the objective. “We’re all developing our own businesses, whether organically or through acquisition, so growth will happen,” he says. “But Fortis itself is not trying to get bigger just for the sake of it.” When the group last held its
New member view That mindset is something that Joe Tipper, director at one of the newest Fortis members Tippers, firmly believes in too. “It’s about looking 5, 10, 15, 20 years down the line,” he says. “None of us are chasing growth for the sake of it. We want to develop, be stronger for the future, grow our businesses, but sustainably. The same applies to membership. It has to be the right fit.” For Berry, one of the most valuable aspects of Fortis membership is the culture of internal challenge.
“We’re stable as a membership, but there’s a constant desire to improve,” he says. “How can we add more value to suppliers? How can we ask more value from them? How can we run our businesses better? How can we benchmark? How can we improve? That willingness to challenge ourselves is incredibly healthy,” he says. “It’s one of the things I’ve been most pleased with since joining Fortis.” The group’s investment in training reinforces that culture. Berry highlights the work done by Phil Woolford’s team in formal training for negotiating teams. “It adds value to both parties - suppliers and members,” he says. “And it feeds back into individual businesses. It makes them better negotiators, which makes
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www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net April 2026
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