The Bad News Behr

Last week the Federal Trade Commission sued to block Henkel AG & Co. from acquiring Liquid Nails Construction Adhesive, alleging that the acquisition would “eliminate competition leading to higher prices for consumers.”

Henkel is the manufacturer of Loctite, which along with Liquid Nails are the nation’s two largest construction adhesive brands.   

Under the terms of the proposed deal, Henkel was to acquire Liquid Nails for $725 million from American Industrial Partners.  AIP acquired the brand in the PPG divestiture along with Pittsburgh, Dulux, Glidden and some others.  Brands which Pittsburgh CEO Brian Carson has spent the year trying to sell without any success, though at least with Liquid Nails he found a buyer. 

Though it may still be a few more New Year’s Eves before Carson can pop the champagne on this deal.

You can add fighting Uncle Sam to the list of problems Carson will have to solve in 2026, which already includes what to do with his barely nationwide network of barely profitable paint stores, shrinking market share for Pittsburgh in the DIY and probably rezi-repaint segments and a dealer division which exists only because Benjamin Moore does.  Surviving in the drift of Montvale’s wake while Pittsburgh dealers prepare for what seems inevitable for the brand with little equity remaining in THE channel.

While Carson tries to cash in his chips, senior executives at Masco continue to cash in theirs.  So far in 2025, insiders at Masco have sold more than $12 million in company stock on top of the $130 million in stock sold last year, including more than $112 million which was paid out to former CEO Keith Allman at his retirement despite Masco’s abysmal performance. 

And while insiders selling is not always a bad sign, in Masco’s case it probably is.

Because it’s not just the optics driving the Masco price down; for the makers of Behr Paint the problems are also fundamental.  With revenue, earnings and market share all dropping some analysts are expressing concernfor Masco, including in their ability to keep paying their dividend after free cash from operations dropped 41% in the first half of the year. 

Leaving Masco paying out more than they are bringing in. 

With more problems than jobs to cut, last week Masco announced the formation of a new Executive Committee tasked with “accelerating the execution of the company’s growth strategy,” though with many members of that committee already selling their stock, more layoffs seem more likely than more growth.

PaintCares

On December 1^st PaintCare began operations in Illinois, the 12th state to adopt paint’s standard for product stewardship.  Next year Maryland becomes lucky 13 to commit to that effort, which to date has redirected more than 87,000,000 gallons of post-consumer paint waste away from landfills and waterways. 

Eighty percent of what PaintCare collects is water-based paint that gets sorted and re-blended into recycled content paint, as useful as virgin materials for the beneficiaries of this process.  The remaining 20% is solvent-based paint that is burned off as fuel with all the cans recycled, thus closing paint’s loop. 

That loop is all paid for by the PaintCare fee which in Illinois has been set at $0.45 for cans smaller than a gallon, $0.95 up to a deuce and $1.95 for any can bigger than that, though the fees vary by state.  No matter the cost this program seems worth it.  With paint accounting for nearly 60% of all microplastics in the oceans getting PaintCare going in all 50-states seems a worthy goal.    

Now I’m Ready

To get off a call yesterday I told the person I was speaking with that I needed to prepare for another meeting.  True, though not exactly an accurate portrayal of what I do before meetings begin.     

With semi-retirement allowing enough time so that I am always prepared, time before meetings is spent in other preparations.  Perhaps switching the laundry from the washer to the drier or reloading the snacks on my desk if I think we’ll be that long.

I might hit the bathroom or text the lady of the house asking what she wants for dinner, but there’s one thing I always do before sitting for a spell.  To ensure that no matter how long the meeting goes I won’t have to get up.