Wesfarmers has handed Bunnings Group control of Blackwoods and Workwear Group, setting up a Bunnings merger that will bring both businesses under the Bunnings banner on July 1. The brands inside the two groups, including Hard Yakka, King Gee and NNT Uniforms, are expected to keep trading under their own names for now.
The move gives Bunnings a bigger foothold in industrial supply and workwear at a moment when the company is already deeply embedded in the country's physical retail network. Bunnings operates 312 stores nationwide, while Blackwoods runs six national distribution centres and more than 45 branches across metropolitan, regional and remote Australia.
Blackwoods is Australia’s largest industrial and safety distributor, with operations spanning Canningvale, Regency Park, Scoresby, Greystanes, Carole Park and Mackay. Its Canningvale facility alone covers 13,500 square metres of purpose-built distribution space, giving the business a logistics footprint that reaches well beyond a standard retail offer. Workwear Group, meanwhile, covers eight brands and brings warehousing, design and distribution capacity into the fold.
Anthony Gianotti said Blackwoods and Workwear Group already held market-leading positions and had continued to grow share after the successful implementation of Blackwoods’ enterprise resource planning system and the simplification and reset of operating models last financial year. He said the transition created a significant opportunity to leverage greater scale and capabilities to further enhance the customer experience, especially as the businesses work more closely with Bunnings.
That close working relationship is where the next phase of the merger will be tested. On paper, the combination links industrial supply, workwear and retail infrastructure in a single group, but the brands themselves are not disappearing overnight. They will continue to operate under their own names for now, leaving the operational integration after July 1 as the key question behind the deal.
Mike Schneider said the transition would give greater access to Blackwoods’ extensive product range and national fulfilment capabilities, a sign that the immediate focus is likely to be on distribution, reach and customer access rather than a wholesale rebrand. For now, the merger changes who sits above the businesses. What follows is how much of their separate identity Bunnings keeps while it tries to turn scale into faster service and broader market reach.
