Fastmarkets acquires century-old Hardwood Market Report to boost forest products division

Fastmarkets, a prominent Price Reporting Agency (PRA) for the forest products, agriculture, and metals, mining, and minerals industries, has announced the acquisition of the Hardwood Market Report. The latter is a 101-year-old agency providing prices and news on sawn North American and tropical hardwoods, serving a wide range of customers, including sawmills, wholesalers, and furniture, flooring, panels, and pallet manufacturers.

This acquisition will allow Fastmarkets to speed up plans to support trade and investment decisions across forest products, including softwood, hardwood, wood products, and biomass. As a part of Fastmarkets, the Hardwood Market Report will gain access to a world-class price reporting infrastructure, bolstering its position in its markets.

Fastmarkets CEO, Raju Daswani, stated, “I am excited to welcome the customers and team from Hardwood Market Report to Fastmarkets. Hardwood Market Report is a business built on trust and credibility in providing transparency for the markets it serves. At Fastmarkets, we have built our business on these pillars, and we believe this will be an exciting opportunity to provide the hardwood industry with new products and services.”

Adding to this, Fastmarkets Chief Strategy and Product Officer Steve D’Souza commented, “This acquisition builds on the successful integration of leading providers of forest products intelligence such as RISI and Random Lengths. By uniting the expertise, networks and resources of renowned brands under Fastmarkets, we empower all our forest products customers with unparalleled advantages.”

Hardwood Market Report’s managing director, Judd Johnson, expressed optimism about the merger, saying, “Fastmarkets’ expansive human and data-collection resources in global forest products markets instantly add deeper and richer information than Hardwood Market Report could have gained on its own. The possibilities from this union are exciting for both new and existing Fastmarkets customers and will be transformative.”