For years, it was known as the ugly duckling, cheaper alternative to plywood. One design maven described it as “like the turkey loaf of building materials.” But oriented strand board – OSB for short – has come into its own over the past 3 1/2 decades as a major player in North American wood-frame housing construction and is increasingly used for industrial and other applications.
Structural OSB panels – made of wood strands that are resin-bonded under high pressure and heat – are mostly used as floor, roofing or wall substrate in home building. They’re also getting play these days on fashionable interior-decoration websites as a “shabby-chic” finishing material.
Capitalizing on OSB’s rise like no other forest-products company is Toronto-based Norbord Inc. Norbord, once a diversified forestry company, has shed assets over the years and focused on OSB. Now boasting annual sales in the $1.5-billion (U.S.) range and a market capitalization of about $2.4-billion (Canadian), it bills itself as the world’s largest producer of OSB.
The $763-million acquisition in 2014 of Vancouver-based Ainsworth Lumber Co. Ltd. gave Norbord – whose operations were concentrated in the U.S. southeast – a strong presence in Western Canada as well as a foothold in the promising Japanese market.
Right now, the steadily growing number of housing starts in the United States is giving Norbord a big boost, and low-key, media-shy chief executive officer Peter Wijnbergen says there are major growth opportunities in Europe and Asia.
From The Globe And Mail: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/forest-products-firm-norbord-riding-the-rising-wave-of-osb-sales/article30985989/