Hillman Doubles Down on the Pro Channel with Delaney Hardware Acquisition
Hillman Solutions Corp. (NASDAQ: HLMN) announced on 13 April 2026 that it had acquired Delaney Hardware, a Georgia-based supplier of door and builder hardware, in a deal expected to contribute more than $10m in net sales during the company's 2026 fiscal year. The purchase price was not disclosed.
Delaney Hardware was founded in 1992 by Michael O'Bryan, who started the business from the basement of his home in Cumming, Georgia. The company's name is a portmanteau of his parents' names, Dick and Elaine. From those modest origins, Delaney grew into a well-regarded regional distributor based in Sugar Hill, near Atlanta, with roughly 150 employees serving more than 4,000 retail dealers across the United States. Its product portfolio spans entry locksets, deadbolts, door handles, digital and smart locks, barn door hardware, bath accessories, builders' hardware, and decorative trim, marketed under the company's own Delaney and Callan brands. Through a subsidiary, Premier Steel Doors & Frames, it also supplies steel doors and frames.
Before the Hillman deal, Delaney had already passed through several hands: O'Bryan sold a controlling stake in 2016, and the company was acquired by high-security lock maker Sargent and Greenleaf — then a portfolio company of private equity firm OpenGate Capital — in December 2019. According to M&A database Mergr, the Hillman transaction marks Delaney's second change of control in recent years.
The Delaney acquisition was, notably, Hillman's second in as many weeks. Approximately one week earlier, the company had purchased Campbell Chain & Fittings, a century-old American industrial chain manufacturer founded in 1919, from Apex Tool Group. That deal is expected to deliver more than $20m in annual net sales. Together, the two bolt-ons add roughly $30m in revenue to Hillman's 2026 fiscal year.
A four-pillar strategy emerges: from the retail shelf to the building site
Hillman's flurry of dealmaking is not random — it flows from a deliberate strategic framework unveiled at the company's first-ever Investor Day in March 2026. Chief executive Jon Michael Adinolfi laid out four strategic pillars and a set of 2030 targets:
| Pillar | Core focus |
|---|---|
| Own the Core | Defend the legacy fasteners and hardware business through category leadership, a 1,200-strong field sales force, and 111,000-plus SKUs |
| Expand Categories | Enter adjacent product categories through both organic growth and M&A |
| Win the Pro | Accelerate new business in specialty distribution, lumber and building materials (LBM), and industrial MRO channels |
| ROIC Focus | Maintain capital discipline and strong free cash flow generation |
"Win the Pro" has been singled out as a "critical new initiative" for Hillman. Unlike the company's traditional model — built around big-box retail endpoints such as Home Depot and Lowe's — the professional channel targets builders, contractors, remodelers, facilities-maintenance personnel, and industrial MRO buyers who purchase through lumberyards, specialty hardware distributors, and industrial supply houses rather than consumer retail shelves.
To lead the charge, Hillman created a dedicated senior vice-president role, appointing James Daly as SVP, Pro. In the Delaney announcement, Daly described the target as "a well-respected regional distributor" whose product range would allow Hillman to "leverage Hillman's core competencies together with Delaney's pro distribution platform to drive profitable growth in the pro channel".
The 2030 ambitions set out at Investor Day are significant: net sales of $2.5bn (roughly a 50% jump from the current ~$1.6bn base), annual revenue growth of 8–12%, low-double-digit adjusted EBITDA growth, and a total addressable market pegged at more than $18bn.
Dissecting Delaney: a deal that writes itself
The strategic fit between Delaney Hardware and Hillman's existing business is unusually clean. As Hardware Retailing reported, Delaney's customer base is weighted towards builders, contractors, and building-product distributors concentrated in the Southeast, with tenured keying technicians processing more than 100,000 locks annually and a reputation for 99% fill rates and custom keying capabilities.
The product overlap fills several specific gaps for Hillman. Entry locksets and deadbolts open the door-hardware category, which Hillman had barely touched. Digital and smart locks provide a foothold in the fast-growing home-security segment (the global smart lock market is valued at roughly $3.7bn in 2026 and expanding at about 15% annually). Barn door hardware, bath accessories, and decorative trim round out the assortment alongside Hillman's existing fasteners and builders'-hardware lines.
The timing is equally telling from a financial standpoint. Hillman's Q1 2026 results, reported on 27 April, showed net sales of $370.1m, up 3% year on year. Within that total, the Hardware Solutions sub-segment posted a solid 7% gain, while Protective Solutions (gloves, work gear) tumbled 17% on customer destocking and reduced promotional activity. Adjusted EBITDA of $50.1m was down 8.1%, and adjusted gross margin contracted 130 basis points to 45.6%, which management attributed to tariff-inflated inventory working its way through the P&L. The quarter was described as the "low watermark" for margins for the full year.
It is precisely this structural divergence — a resilient core hardware business offset by pockets of softness — that is pushing Hillman to stretch towards faster-growing, higher-margin professional channels through M&A. On the Q1 earnings call, Adinolfi characterised both Delaney and Campbell as "accretive tuck-in acquisitions" and said the company "continues to look for further acquisition opportunities as a key part of its long-term growth strategy".
The bigger picture: US hardware distribution enters a period of consolidation
Hillman is not alone. More than 212 warehouse, capacity, and M&A projects have been recorded across the US building-materials and hardware distribution sector since the start of 2026, a marked increase on the prior year. The largest single commitment is USG Corporation's $1.2bn manufacturing and warehouse complex in Orange, Texas — the biggest industrial investment in the building-materials sector this year.
On the M&A front, global lock giant ASSA ABLOY — which acquired Silicon Valley smart-lock start-up Level Home in 2024 — last month laid off the majority of Level's workforce, including its founders, and folded the remainder into its Kwikset brand. Hillman, by contrast, has stressed that Delaney's professional distribution platform and regional brand value will be preserved rather than absorbed — a distinction that hints at an industry pivot in M&A logic: from acquiring brands to acquiring channels.
At the close of Q1 2026, Hillman's net leverage stood at 2.6x, up modestly from 2.4x at year-end 2025 but within striking distance of the 2030 target of no more than 2.5x. With full-year free cash flow guidance of $100m–$120m reaffirmed, the company retains enough financial headroom in the near term to execute further mid-sized bolt-on deals. As MDM put it in its assessment of the transaction: "Hillman stays aggressive".