Saint-Gobain Completes Sale of Dahl Business at €1.518 Billion Enterprise Value
Key Facts
On November 2, 2026, Saint-Gobain completed the sale of its specialist distribution business in Sweden, Norway and Denmark to Kesko, according to the French company’s announcement, concluding a deal involving operations under the main Dahl brand. Saint-Gobain set the enterprise value at €1.518 billion, while Kesko put the transaction price at €1.2 billion excluding lease liabilities. The company said the sale would improve its business profile under its “Lead & Grow” plan. Completion transfers a sizable technical-trade business to Kesko, while its companies continue operating as separate units. The sale marks the execution of the transfer of Dahl’s businesses in the three Nordic markets to the buyer.
The business sold generated sales of 2,068 million euros in 2025 and had 2,700 employees and 190 outlets at the time of the announcement, according to Saint-Gobain. Kesko said the three companies recorded the same combined sales that year, alongside IFRS-based earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of 146 million euros. Dahl’s sales were 922 million euros in Sweden, 614 million in Norway and 533 million in Denmark, according to Kesko’s disclosure when it announced the agreement. The Finnish company also said its customer base exceeded 70,000 and digital sales accounted for about 35% of the total. These figures show the scale of the business transferred to Kesko through direct and digital sales channels across the three countries.
The enterprise value of 1.518 billion euros is based on a multiple of 10.4 times 2025 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization including lease liabilities under IFRS 16, or 14.6 times excluding them, according to Saint-Gobain. The difference between the enterprise value and Kesko’s announced transaction price reflects the different basis of comparison, as the 1.2 billion euro price excludes lease liabilities. Kesko announced an agreement in June to acquire the three operations before confirming its completion in November. The buyer estimates Dahl is the market leader in heating, plumbing and air-conditioning products in Sweden and Norway, and ranks second in those products in Denmark. This strengthens Kesko’s presence in technical trade across Northern European markets.
Kesko said the acquired companies would continue operating as separate business units, under the Dahl brand in Sweden and the Brødrene Dahl brand in Norway and Denmark. Integration will be limited to suitable areas, such as reporting and information systems, while the full transfer of information systems to Kesko is expected to take about 12 to 18 months. Dahl began to be included in the group’s financial reporting as of November 1, 2026, according to the buyer’s disclosure, one day before the deal’s completion was announced. Kesko estimated non-recurring costs related to the transaction at about 9 million euros in 2026. The company said growth in the technical-trade market is supported by increasing technical complexity in construction, continued growth in renovation and technical infrastructure businesses, and the green transition.
Kesko is seeking to expand its heating, plumbing and air-conditioning business, saying its sales volume in the category will approach three times its previous level, rising from about 1 billion euros to nearly 3 billion after the acquisition. When it announced the agreement, the group set a sales target of about 20 billion euros in the early 2030s, compared with sales of 12.5 billion euros in 2025. At Saint-Gobain, total sales were 11.6 billion euros in the third quarter of 2026, with like-for-like growth of 2.5%, while like-for-like sales rose 1.2% in the nine months ended in September. The group said Northern Europe sales grew 3.4% on a like-for-like basis in the third quarter, and the Nordic countries posted further solid growth, supported by an improved product mix and greater exposure to non-residential markets. These results place the sold Dahl business in the context of the group’s broader performance in the period before the sale was completed.
Saint-Gobain shares, traded under the ticker CODYY, closed at $7.88 on November 2, 2026, according to EL7 data. In its published outlook, the company said it expects like-for-like sales growth in the second half of 2026 and an earnings-before-interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization margin above 15.0% for the year. Saint-Gobain set February 18, 2027, as the date for reporting its 2026 results, after trading closes on the Paris Stock Exchange. The date falls in the next phase of investor monitoring of the group’s performance after the sale of its Nordic business, alongside the start of Dahl’s inclusion in Kesko’s financial reports. The transfer of information systems to Kesko will continue over 12 to 18 months, according to the schedule announced by the company.