How this French building behemoth wants to solve the U.S. housing dilemma
A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Property Play newsletter with Diana Olick. Property Play covers new and evolving opportunities for the real estate investor, from individuals to venture capitalists, private equity funds, family offices, institutional investors and large public companies. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox. French building product conglomerate Saint-Gobain started its business more than 350 years ago, making the mirrors for the Palace of Versailles. Now it’s set its sights on windows in U.S. homes – windows, walls, ceilings and other building materials. The company has invested close to $7 billion in the North American market in the last three years, making it the largest for the global company. While a previous strategy focused on growth through acquisition, the company is now investing in organic growth, expanding its existing manufacturing facilities and investing in others. It has more than 18,000 employees in North America at more than 160 sites, and 2024 sales in the market (the latest available) came in at $10.5 billion. “We’re doubling down in North America because the fundamentals in North America are very strong,” Mark Rayfield, North America CEO for Saint-Gobain, told Property Play . “We’re underbuilt in residential. There’s a need for almost 4 million homes to be built in the U.S. to catch up with population growth, and there’s a lot of renovation needed in commercial.” Saint-Gobain is focusing on speed and affordability in construction through its materials, assembly and other tools, according to Rayfield. He pointed to the company’s “One Precision” assembly system. It replaces traditional “stick-built” framing with factory-constructed wall, floor, and roof panels. The system accelerates home building by shifting the majority of labor to a controlled indoor environment, allowing for parallel processing where panels are fabricated at the factory while site preparation occurs simultaneously. The company says this can cut building cycle times by anywhere from 30% to 50%. It also eliminates typical on-site delays caused by weather, labor shortages, and complex trade coordination. “If you’re building a home, or you are a small homebuilder, you’re building 10 to 15 homes a year. If you were to use this solution, you could build three times that number of homes, because the big time is framing in and weatherproofing the house,” Rayfield said. Saint-Gobain’s move to U.S. production in states such as Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and New York protects it from tariffs that are hitting so many of the nation’s big homebuilders. Rayfield describes the company’s strategy as “local for local,” but admits that labor continues to be a big challenge. “We think we have to take ownership of training more people in construction and manufacturing, so we do a lot of work there, but there’s always some headwinds,” he said. Last fall, CertainTeed, a subsidiary of Saint-Gobain, finished a significant expansion at its Palatka, Florida, operation, making it the world’s largest gypsum wallboard manufacturing plant. The expanded facility will produce CertainTeed’s full line of gypsum wallboard products locally in the southeast U.S., in an effort to ensure supply chain reliability. With both deep-water port and rail access, the site provides an efficient distribution hub for the rapidly growing regional market, according to a release. Saint-Gobain has long been committed to sustainable materials and building more climate-resilient homes. Even as the political rhetoric in the U.S. moves away from climate-related goals, Rayfield contends there’s still incentive to build efficiently, because there is no cost differential when using a prefab system. All of the components are meant to work together seamlessly. It’s just a matter of putting the systems together and training the contractors on how to build it. And while sustainability may be out of political fashion, resilience is far from it, especially as weather events intensify due to climate change. “We need to make houses in California that are better prepared for fire, houses in the Southeast that can handle hurricanes and floods, houses in New England that can handle freezing and driving rain, and hail-resistant activities,” said Rayfield. But he is still committed to using sustainable materials, recycled content and less energy in construction and manufacturing. This includes recirculating heat bumps and using electric and carbon-free energy. “We know we need to make products that are affordable for the customer, and where we can do that in a lower carbon footprint, we do,” he said. “And resilience is the key to what we need to do going forward.”