By NKBA Staff
Company News
Fortune Brands Taps Banati: Fortune Brands Innovations Inc., parent of Moen, House of Rohl, Emtek and other brands, has named Amit Banati to take over as CEO from Nicholas Fink in May. Fink has been CEO for six years and served on the company’s board. He will leave Fortune Brands on April 1 to pursue a professional opportunity. During the transition, Suan Kilsby, board chair, will become executive chair and assume the duties of CEO until Banati fully takes over on May 13. Kilsby will then return to her role as non-executive board chair. Banati has also served on Fortune’s board for almost six years and has been chair of the Audit Committee since May 2024. Since May 2025, he was CFO of consumer health company Kenvue, and prior to that, he was vice chair and CFO of Kellanova (formerly Kellogg Co.). Designers Today has more.
Construction Resources Buys Jarrell: Construction Resources Co. has acquired NBKA member The Jarrell Co., a Dallas-based distributor of luxury appliances, plumbing, and lighting, with four kitchen and bath showrooms across Texas. Construction Resources was acquired by The Home Depot in 2023 and is a leading distributor of design-oriented surfaces, appliances, cabinets, plumbing fixtures, and specialty products for professional contractors and designers focused on renovation, remodeling, and residential home building. KBB has the story.
Klaus Grohe Dies: Klaus Grohe, the long-standing head of the Hansgrohe Group, died Jan. 3 at age 88. He was the third and youngest son of Hans Grohe, founder of the Schiltach, Germany-based company. Klaus Grohe joined the family business in 1968 as head of sales and, over the next five decades, shaped its destiny, first as managing partner, then as chairman of the executive board in 1999, and from 2008 to 2015 as chairman of the supervisory board. In the early 1980s, he championed environmentally conscious thinking and action, appointing an environmental officer, developing water-saving showers, and building a solar tower and a roof-integrated solar power plant at the company’s Offenburg site. He also installed a roof-integrated solar power system, which was awarded the Baden-Württemberg Environmental Prize in 1994. More details here.
Designhounds Launches Bootcamp Series: Designhounds, the influencer and education platform for design pros, will host its inaugural Designhounds Bootcamp in Brooklyn on May 15, in partnership with EcoHiveNY, which supports collaboration, education, and environmental responsibility in design. The first bootcamp will be a one-day workshop featuring product education sessions focused on a single category. The hands-on experience will focus on how products are built, installed, specified and supported in real-world projects. Designhounds expects to expand the program to two or three bootcamps around the U.S. this year. Learn more here.
Gaggenau Adds to Expressive Series: German luxury appliance maker Gaggenau is introducing the Expressive Oven series, its first all-new built-in collection in nearly 20 years. The series blends Gaggenau’s performance and craftsmanship with Bauhaus-inspired style, featuring smoked glass over stainless steel. The oven features a new convection-plus system, an industry-first concealed full-surface broiler, a powerful bottom element that elevates the baking stone to 570°F, 19 heating methods, pyrolytic cleaning, and new modes including Air Frying, Dehydration, and Moist Baking. It will be rolled out nationwide within a few months. More info here.
Industry News
New Home Sales Slip: Sales of new single-family homes in December slipped 1.7 percent from November but were up year-over-year by 3.8 percent from December 2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The December YOY bump didn’t propel 2025 sales, which, at an estimated 679,000 homes sold, were down 1.1 percent from 2024, when 686,000 homes sold. The average sales price of a new house in December inched up 0.5 percent to $532,000 from November, when it was $530,000, but was up 4.7 percent over the December 2024 average of $508,900. More detail here.
Millennials Driving Home Spending: New research shows that Millennials have become the primary drivers of today’s home projects economy, generating the highest total home spending per household of any generation, according to Angi’s 2025 State of Home Spending Report. While Millennials are not yet the largest group of homeowners, they outspend all other generations on a per-household basis, signaling their growing influence on how Americans invest in their homes. Their momentum shows no signs of slowing: 77 percent of surveyed Millennials say they plan to take on a major home project in the next five years, the highest of any generation. After several years of higher mortgage rates and later entry into homeownership, Millennials are approaching their homes differently than previous generations. Rather than moving, many are choosing to invest where they are. Older generations continued to spend more on improvements alone last year, with Boomers topping the list with an average spend of $12,454. Still, Millennials lead overall home project spending by investing heavily in maintenance and emergency repairs. More on the report here.
Good Times for Designers: The American Society of Interior Designers reported that employment in the industry rose 18 percent, adding 7,800 jobs between October 2019 and March 2025, according to its latest “Compensation & Benefits Guide.” Median salaries increased by 2.1 percent between May 2023 and May 2024 to $ 71,430. Learn more here.
