Stuart Mason-Elliott will be standing down as the CBA’s chairman.

Mr Mason-Elliott is to move away from the Combined Buying Association (CBA) to form a new buying group with Cemco members. Commodity group chairmen Kevin Fenlon, Graham Skillen and Tony Adams will also stand down with immediate effect, along with all other persons who hold positions of responsibility within the CBA but do not belong to one of the six ongoing member companies.

All members of the CBA, including the departing members, have committed to continuing to support 2013 agreements for the remainder of the year. The CBA is happy and committed to be working with the departing members to honour the agreements.

Moving forward, the CBA believes the traditional values of merchant buying are more important today than ever. These include:

  • Buying in bulk to gain efficiency in the supply chain
  • Building strong relationships between the members and suppliers at all levels from the bottom to the top of both businesses
  • Delivering on commitment
  • Being decisive and effecting change quickly as market conditions shift
  • Acting with honesty and integrity
  • Employing staff with the correct level of expertise
  • Retaining focus on these values in order to minimise bureaucracy and overheads of the organisation.

The CBA says it looks forward to working with suppliers that share these core values of merchanting and wish to build a trading partnership with a very focused group of companies. The remaining CBA members – AW Lumb, Beesley and Fildes, James Burrell, John A Stephens, Robert Price, and Tippers – differentiate themselves in their marketplace as professional businesses built on local expertise and market knowledge. They are all key regional merchants with turnover in excess of £20m and financially sound, ethical and trustworthy companies which trade responsibly and with integrity, according to the CBA.

All members believe in committing with suppliers to offer a differentiated route to market for their products. This includes proactively promoting their product, as well as being a key partner in their distribution channel by leveraging the CBA’s infrastructure, to deliver a more cost-effective solution to the supplier.

The new officials of the CBA are:

  • Chairman: Steve Richardson (James Burrell)
  • Building committee chairman: John Beesley (Beesley and Fildes)
  • Timber committee chairman: Peter Sampson (Tippers)
  • Lightside committee chairman: Chris Coggins (Robert Price).