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BlueLinx Holdings has announced that George R. Judd will no longer serve as president and chief executive, effective May 14, 2013. Judd will also resign as a director of BlueLinx following the 2013 Annual Meeting of Stockholders on May 16.

The board has appointed Howard S. Cohen to serve as executive chairman, while the board conducts a search for a successor to Judd. Cohen has been a director of the company since 2007 and has served as chairman of the board since 2008.

Menashe, Israel-based Caesarstone Sdot-Yam, manufacturer of engineered quartz surfaces, announced that it has entered into an agreement with IKEA US as the exclusive non-laminate countertop vendor. 

Caesarstone will source, finish and distribute countertop products, including mainly Caesarstone quartz surfaces as well as other materials. 

Haier has named Rian Cain senior VP of sales and marketing for Home Appliances and Home Comfort. Mr. Cain comes to Haier with over 30 years of experience in the appliances industry, including 22 years with Maytag Corp.

He will report to Ma Chunyu, COO of Haier America, and will lead all product marketing, sales and branding initiatives for Home Comfort and Home Appliance products. 

Builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes improved three points to 44 on the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) for May. This gain, from a downwardly revised 41 in April, reflected improvement in all three index components -- current sales conditions, sales expectations and traffic of prospective buyers. 

Dallas-based building materials manufacturer and distributor Eagle Materials reported big sales and earnings gains for the fiscal year ended March 31.

The maker and distributor of cement, gypsum wallboard and other materials reported full year revenues of $642.6 million, an increase of 30%. Net earnings for the year were $57.7 million, up from $18.7 million a year ago.

Albuquerque-based Mud Monsters Pond and Landscape Supply has been sold to Randy Kindrick, who has been managing the business for the past four years.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Kindrick acquired the company from Savio Engineering and its owners Keith and Valerie Steele. According to the acquisition announcement, the Steeles have decided to solely concentrate efforts on Savio Engineering and recently expanded their business opening a second east coast location in New Jersey.

Chicago-based True Value Co. reported first-quarter gross billings of $443.3 million, down 0.9% from the same quarter last year.

A nearly non-existent spring in many parts of the country hurt sales. The company also explained gross billings were affected by a decline in lumber and building material vendor direct-ship sales.

"While winter-related product sales exceeded the prior year, the general lack of spring weather this March versus last year was too much to overcome," said Lyle Heidemann, president ad CEO. 

Handy Hardware Wholesale said it welcomed the bankruptcy court approval of its debtor in possession (DIP) financing loan modification that brings funding from Littlejohn Management Holdings. 

Littlejohn, which agreed to acquire Handy and shed its co-op structure as it emerges from bankruptcy, will provide a $4 million DIP loan, funding that will commence this week. 

Minneapolis paint giant Valspar reported second quarter net sales of $1.03 billion, essentially flat with the prior-year quarter.

The company, which recently signed a deal to become the key supplier of paint for Ace Hardware, reported net income of $76.9 million, up from $76.5 million in last year's second quarter.

Volume was up 7%, including the Ace deal, up 3% excluding Ace. 

Peabody, Mass.-based Beacon Roofing Supply posted a second-quarter net loss of $0.2 million, compared with net income of $3.1 million in the same quarter last year.

Sales increased 5.3% to $416.3 million in the quarter.

CEO Paul Isabella described the second quarter as "challenging."

He added: "We experienced harsh weather conditions in many of our markets, and we were up against a very strong second quarter last year when our existing market sales were up 28%." 

U.S. retail and food services sales for April increased slightly, but home channel sales increased more.

Building material and garden equipment and supplies dealers, the NAICS 444 category that includes lumberyards, home centers and hardware stores, showed sales of $25.5 billion, according to the government data. That's up 1.5% from the previous month, and up 4.1% from the same month a year ago.

That compares to increases of 0.1% and 3.7%, respectively, for all U.S. retail and food services sales.