‍Wall Street and the Swiss.

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Surprised?

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The commercial roofing industry has been quietly consolidating for two decades. While building owners were busy running their businesses, a handful of private dynasties, Swiss multinationals, and Wall Street–traded conglomerates acquired almost every major brand name in flat roofing materials. The companies that make your membrane, your insulation, your fasteners, and your coatings are not the companies you think they are.

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This matters because ownership determines where profits flow, which communities enjoy job growth, and whether your “Buy American” roof is actually supporting American families, or Swiss shareholders, German industrialists, and index fund algorithms.

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So who owns the Big 8?

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And is there anyone left who answers to nobody?

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The Big 8: Who Controls the Commercial Flat Roof Market

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Here are the eight ownership groups that collectively control an estimated 85 to 90% of all membrane and coating materials sold in the United States. Stare at this table for thirty seconds. Then ask yourself where your money goes when you buy roofing material.

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✉️ Who actually profits from your roof?

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Subject Property Address: ___________________________

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Drop one property address. We’ll trace the material, the manufacturer, and the ownership behind it. FREE evaluation. No sales pitch. No pressure. No obligation.

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[ Email address ] → [ Send Me the Real Stuff ]

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BRAND

PARENT OWNER

TYPE

HQ

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW

GAF / Siplast

Standard Industries

Private (US)

New York

$11B revenue. Millstone-Winter-Heyman families. Net worth $19.2B. Also owns W.R. Grace ($7B acquisition).

Carlisle SynTec, Versico, Henry

Carlisle Companies

NYSE: CSL

Scottsdale, AZ

28% owned by Vanguard + BlackRock + Morgan Stanley. $4.5B revenue. Acquired Henry for $1.575B.

Elevate, Duro-Last, Gaco, GenFlex

Amrize (ex-Holcim)

NYSE: AMRZ

Swiss origin

Spun off from Swiss Holcim June 2025. Firestone changed parents 3 times in 40 years. $4B+ segment.

Johns Manville

Berkshire Hathaway

NYSE: BRK

Denver, CO

Warren Buffett subsidiary since 2001. $1.92B acquisition. Parent market cap $1T+. No liquid coatings focus.

IKO Industries

Koschitzky Family

Private (CAN)

Brampton, ON

Polish immigrant founded 1951. Fourth generation. ~$950M revenue. Canadian family-owned. No outside investors.

Tremco CPG

RPM International

NYSE: RPM

Cleveland, OH

$2.8B construction products segment. Fluid-applied membranes, coatings, BUR, mod-bit.

Sika / Sarnafil

Sika AG

SIX: SIKA

Zug, Switzerland

Swiss multinational. CHF 11.24B global sales. PVC membranes for 60+ years. Also acquired BASF chemicals.

Conklin Company

Charles W. Herbster

Private (US)

Kansas City, MO

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One American owner. Nebraska farmer. $154M revenue. Direct to contractor. 2+ billion sqft installed.

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Follow the Money: The Big 8 in Detail

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GAF and Siplast, Standard Industries

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The biggest name in American roofing is privately held by three New York families worth a combined $19.2 billion. Standard Industries employs over 20,000 people across 50+ countries. They bought Denmark’s Icopal for €1 billion. They bought Germany’s Braas Monier for €1.1 billion. They bought W.R. Grace for $7 billion. GAF makes TPO, expired rubber EPDM, ancient-tech torch-down modified bitumen, and coatings at 30+ U.S. facilities. Siplast still produces the torch-down rolls that belong in a museum next to the rotary phone.

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Is Standard Industries evil? No. They employ a lot of Americans. But they are a $19 billion dynasty that answers to family wealth, not to your building.

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Carlisle Companies, NYSE: CSL

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The world’s largest supplier of commercial single-ply roofing is a publicly traded corporation whose three biggest shareholders are index fund managers.

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Vanguard owns 11.4%. BlackRock owns 11.1%. Morgan Stanley owns 5.6%. Together they control 28.1% of Carlisle’s shares. That means every quarterly earnings call, every product decision, every pricing strategy is filtered through the lens of shareholder returns. Carlisle’s CEO has a stated goal of $40 adjusted earnings per share by 2030. That is the mission. Your roof is the vehicle.

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Carlisle’s brand portfolio is enormous: Carlisle SynTec (flagship), Versico, WeatherBond, Hunter Panels for insulation, and Henry Company (acquired for $1.575 billion from private equity firm American Securities in 2021). Henry makes silicone and acrylic coatings, spray foam, and air barriers.

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Seventy percent of Carlisle’s commercial roofing revenue comes from re-roofing. They need your roof to fail and be replaced. That is the business model. Re-roofing is a “highly recurring revenue stream.” Their words, from their investor presentations. Not ours.

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Amrize (formerly Holcim Building Envelope), NYSE: AMRZ

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This is the most confusing ownership story in the entire industry. Firestone Building Products was an American company. Then it became Japanese (Bridgestone acquired it in 1988). Then it became Swiss (Holcim bought it from Bridgestone in 2021 for $3.4 billion). Then in June 2025, Holcim spun off its entire North American business into a new publicly traded company called Amrize, valued at approximately $30 billion.

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Under the Amrize umbrella you now find: Elevate (the new name for Firestone), Duro-Last (acquired for $1.293 billion), GenFlex (plastic wrap and vinyl), Gaco (market leader in silicone coatings), and Malarkey Roofing Products (acquired for $1.35 billion).

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Three corporate parents in four decades. Every time ownership changes, the warranty language gets a little more interesting. The factory stays the same. The products stay the same. But the corporate entity standing behind your 20-year warranty? Different name, different country, different shareholders, every decade or so.

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Johns Manville, Berkshire Hathaway

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Warren Buffett paid $1.92 billion cash for JM in 2001. The parent company’s market cap now exceeds one trillion dollars. JM makes plastic TPO, expired rubber EPDM, vinyl PVC, torch-down modified bitumen, old-school BUR, and polyiso insulation. Forty-four manufacturing facilities. A Denver headquarters. Stable ownership for 25 years.

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JM is American-owned through Berkshire. No foreign parent. But JM does not specialize in modern liquid-applied coatings. They are a membrane and insulation company. If you believe the future of commercial roofing is liquid chemistry, and we do, then JM is focused on the past.

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IKO Industries, Koschitzky Family (Canada)

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The Koschitzky family has owned IKO since 1951. Fourth generation. Polish immigrant roots. Calgary, Alberta. Approximately $950 million in revenue. No outside investors. No IPO. No private equity. Just a family that makes roofing materials.

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IKO manufactures torch-down modified bitumen, old-school BUR, their newer Innovi plastic wrap TPO line, polyiso insulation, and coatings. They are Canadian-owned but manufacture extensively in the United States. We respect the family ownership model. But they are not American-owned, and they are not focused on advanced liquid chemistry.

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RPM International / Tremco, NYSE: RPM

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Tremco CPG sits inside RPM International, a Cleveland-based publicly traded company with $2.8 billion in construction products revenue. Tremco makes a full range: BUR, modified bitumen, single-ply, fluid-applied membranes, and coatings. Founded in 1928. Solid American heritage. Publicly traded, so the usual index fund shareholders apply.

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Sika / Sarnafil, Swiss

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Sika AG is a Swiss multinational with CHF 11.24 billion in global sales and 33,000+ employees. Their Sarnafil brand has manufactured vinyl PVC membranes for over 60 years, one of the longest track records of any single-ply product. PVC roofs from the 1960s are still in service in Europe. That is legitimately impressive.

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But the profits flow to Zug, Switzerland. The decisions are made in Zug, Switzerland. The shareholders are on the SIX Swiss Exchange. When you buy Sarnafil, you are buying Swiss engineering, manufactured in Canton, Massachusetts, and sending your money to a Swiss corporate treasury.

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And Then There’s Conklin

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One owner. One farmer. One country. Zero middlemen.

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Charles W. Herbster, a fifth-generation Nebraska farmer and rancher, purchased Conklin Company in 1992 and became sole owner by 1994. He grew it from $75 million to $154 million in four years, three of which were during COVID. The company manufactures in Shakopee, Minnesota and Kansas City, Missouri. It sells directly to contractors. No ABC Supply. No QXO. No Home Depot. No wholesale markup. No foreign parent. No index fund shareholders. No quarterly earnings pressure.

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Conklin products have been applied to over 2 billion square feet of commercial roofing since 1977. The company pioneered the acrylic elastomeric roof coating, born from an attempt to develop a durable red barn paint for farming communities. Today, 66% of all products shipping from the factory are seamless liquid coatings, not rolled membranes. Conklin believes the future of commercial roofing is liquid chemistry. Not ancient plastic. Not expired rubber. Not tar.

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Every other major manufacturer on this list distributes through ABC Supply ($20.7 billion in revenue), QXO ($11 billion acquisition of Beacon), or SRS/Home Depot ($18.25 billion acquisition). Those distributors take 15–30% margins. Conklin contractors buy direct at manufacturer pricing. That savings flows to the building owner, not to a warehouse chain.

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Frequently Asked Questions

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‍Q: 1. Who is the biggest commercial roofing manufacturer in America?

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GAF, owned by Standard Industries (Millstone-Winter-Heyman families, New York). Estimated $11 billion in consolidated revenue across all Standard Industries companies. GAF operates 30+ U.S. manufacturing facilities.

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Q: 2. Is Carlisle Roofing publicly traded?

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Yes. Carlisle Companies trades on the NYSE under ticker CSL. The Vanguard Group (11.4%), BlackRock (11.1%), and Morgan Stanley (5.6%) are the three largest institutional shareholders, collectively controlling approximately 28% of outstanding shares. (Source: Carlisle SEC DEF 14A proxy filing, February 2025)

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Q: 3. Who owns Firestone Building Products now?

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The brand is now called Elevate and operates under Amrize (NYSE: AMRZ), which was spun off from Swiss multinational Holcim in June 2025. Holcim had acquired Firestone from Japanese tire company Bridgestone in 2021 for $3.4 billion. The ownership chain: American (Firestone) → Japanese (Bridgestone, 1988) → Swiss (Holcim, 2021) → NYSE spin-off (Amrize, 2025).

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Q: 4. Is Conklin an American company?

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Yes. Conklin Company Inc. is privately owned by Charles W. Herbster, a fifth-generation Nebraska farmer and rancher. He purchased the company in 1992 and became sole owner in 1994. Manufacturing takes place in Shakopee, Minnesota and Kansas City, Missouri. No foreign parent. No private equity. No public shareholders.

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Q: 5. How does Conklin distribute materials without a wholesale distributor?

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Conklin sells directly to certified contractors who purchase at manufacturer pricing. There is no ABC Supply, QXO, or SRS distribution layer. This eliminates the 15–30% wholesale markup that every other major manufacturer builds into their supply chain. Contractors become certified through Conklin’s factory training program and purchase directly from the manufacturer.

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Q: 6. Does “Made in America” mean the same thing as “American-owned”?

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No. Approximately 96% of roofing products sold in the United States are manufactured domestically. But many of those factories are owned by Swiss, German, French, Italian, Canadian, and Japanese parent companies. “Made here” and “owned here” are two very different sentences. (Source: Freedonia Group)

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Q: 7. What is the Build America Buy America Act?

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BABA (signed November 15, 2021) requires that all manufactured products and construction materials used in federally funded infrastructure projects be produced in the United States. This directly covers PVC membranes, TPO membranes, coatings, and spray foam. Conklin products are manufactured in Minnesota and Missouri by an American-owned company, BABA compliance is automatic with no waivers required.

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Q: 8. Why does ownership matter if the product is made in America?

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Because profits determine where communities grow. When a Swiss-owned factory in Ohio ships product, the manufacturing jobs stay in Ohio but the corporate profits flow to Zug, Switzerland. When Conklin ships from Kansas City, the profits stay with an American owner, American employees, and American communities. Where your dollars go after the sale matters.

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✉️ You don’t just choose a roof. You choose who gets paid for the next 20 years. Let’s make sure it’s the right one.

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Subject Property Address: ___________________________

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Send us one address. We’ll show you exactly what’s on your building and what your options really are.

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FREE evaluation. No sales pitch. No pressure. No obligation.

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[ Email address ] → [ Send Me the Real Stuff ]

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Sources

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Standard Industries — standardindustries.com/who-we-are/about/

Forbes estimated net worth of Standard Industries families — Forbes, February 2024

Carlisle Companies SEC DEF 14A Proxy Filing — sec.gov, February 2025

Carlisle Companies Investor Relations — carlisle.com

Holcim/Amrize spin-off — holcim.com media releases, June 2025

Holcim acquisition of Firestone — holcimelevate.com, $3.4B transaction, April 2021

Holcim acquisition of Duro-Last — holcim.com, $1.293B, March 2023

Holcim acquisition of Malarkey — holcim.com, $1.35B, March 2022

Berkshire Hathaway acquisition of Johns Manville — berkshirehathaway.com, February 2001

Johns Manville company profile — jm.com/en/our-company/

IKO Industries heritage — Business Pulse (Whatcom County), March 2023

RPM International 10-K filing — rpminc.com/media/6510/10-k-filing.pdf

Sika AG company profile — sika.com, Canton MA operations

Conklin Company — Business View Magazine interview with Charles Herbster, 2023

Conklin owner biography — conklin.com/owner-bio

Freedonia Group — 96% domestic roofing manufacturing figure

ABC Supply fact sheet — abcsupply.com/media-center/fact-sheet/

QXO acquisition of Beacon Roofing Supply — investors.qxo.com, April 2025

Home Depot acquisition of SRS Distribution — prnewswire.com, June 2024

Carlisle acquisition of Henry Company — Roofing Contractor, July 2021

TruFast / Altenloh Brinck & Co. — altenloh.us/about

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This is Part 1 of The Ownership Series.

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Part 2: “The Distribution Game — Middlemen, Markups, and the Model That Bypasses Them All”

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Part 3: “The Conklin Story — A Farmer, the Amish, and the Liquid Future of Commercial Roofing”

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Pristine Industrial Roofing

Lake & Porter Counties  │  Commercial Flat Roofing  │  Conklin Certified

(219) 529-1995  │  ModernRoofChemistry.com

We love you enough to tell you the truth.

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