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MaterialsXchange (“MX”), an electronic marketplace for buying and selling raw materials, went live on Monday with the first transaction executed shortly after the launch. The first listings on MX are wood products, specifically Oriented Strand Board (OSB), European Spruce (Euro Spruce) lumber, and Southern Yellow Pine (SYP) lumber. **This inaugural transaction on MX matched Binderholz Timber Inc. (seller) with Hart Lumber (buyer) for a first-ever deal between the two and consisted of a full truckload of 2x4 Euro Spruce from the Port of Houston.
This first transaction on the MX platform marks the beginning of a new and more efficient era for commodity materials markets. Historically, these markets have been impeded by a lack of price transparency and an inefficient “call around” structure. At the same time, payment processes have been archaic and fraught with credit risk for sellers. With its straightforward and intuitive platform, MX has provided a solution for these issues. The platform’s two-sided price format, with continuous updates of transparent data, gives all participants much-needed insight and enables buyers and sellers to easily place bids and offers in real-time without the time-consuming task of price extraction.
MX is first bringing its solution to the wood products market, where there is no efficient digital solution for managing the supply chain of the more than 3 million truckloads of North American softwood lumber and structural wood panels produced each year.
“MX has a team of individuals from the financial trading and technology industry who identified inefficiencies in the raw materials spot markets and built an innovative and easy-to-use solution,” commented Mike Wisnefski, CEO of MaterialsXchange. “The MX platform, with its combination of transparent market data, automated back-office functionality, and accessibility, provides market participants with meaningful gains of efficiency and cost savings.”
“MaterialsXchange’s platform is a natural fit for our company. Binderholz is an organization that believes being open to innovations is the path of progress,” commented Thomas Mende, President & CEO of Binderholz Timber Inc. “It is truly remarkable that by selling our lumber through MaterialsXchange we get instant access to a large, diverse group of buyers, while simultaneously lowering our marketing costs.”
Brandon Natale, VP of Purchasing at Hart Lumber, said, “The people of the Hart Lumber family are our most valuable asset, and we see the MaterialsXchange platform as a tool that our team can use to free up time for focusing on customer service. Because of our commitment to customers and employees, it is our duty to constantly search for best practices and implement innovation. We see MX as just such a modernization to help carry on our legacy as a conscientious industry leader.”
In the coming months, MX plans to expand the reach of the marketplace across the United States and launch new products from other industries on the platform. For more information, please visit materialsxchange.com
**Normally user activity is strictly confidential, but the counterparties of the first transaction have volunteered to comment.
