Kelly Moore paint stores have shut their doors.
Founded about 80 years ago in the Bay Area, Kelly-Moore had 157 stores nationwide and around 70 of them in Central and Northern California.The chain, with headquarters and manufacturing in Texas, announced January 12 they would lay off 700 employees and go out of business.
Store closures are happening on the Central Coast in San Luis Obispo County, as well as a large cluster of about 60 stores from Stockton to Salinas and all over the Bay Area and Central Valley.
Company headquarters moved to Irving, Texas in 2023 from the Bay Area. In recent years, the company was under financial pressure because of lawsuits related to its use of asbestos in cement and texturing materials until 1981.
A statement highlighted the pressure.
“I’m extremely disappointed and saddened by this outcome, as the entire Kelly-Moore team made incredible efforts to continue innovating and serving the unique needs of professional painting contractors,” Kelly-Moore Paints CEO Charles Gassenheimer said. “The ownership group’s commitment from day one was to fix the business if we could. Sadly, no matter how great the Kelly-Moore team, products and reputation for service, we simply couldn’t overcome the massive legal and financial burdens that have been weighing on the Company for many years.”
During the wind-down process, the company said they will continue to fulfill previously placed customer orders from existing inventory in Kelly-Moore’s Union City, California, distribution facility.
In September 2022, Kelly Moore Paints was acquired by Flacks Group, a Miami, Florida-based investment firm that holds more than $2 billion of total assets. Flacks Group bought the paint company’s retailing, distributing and manufacturing units. After the acquisition, Charles Gassenheimer, managing partner of the Flacks Group, became the CEO of Kelly-Moore Paints.Kelly-Moore had $400 million in annual revenues and 1,200 employees at that time.
In 2021, Kelly-Moore Paints had an estimated 6.6% of total industry revenue behind Sherwin-Williams and PPG Industries, each with over 11% market share.
