Paint Giant Agrees to Buy Duron

Sherwin-Williams wants to maintain its hold on the professionals, a big part of the paint market, a major reason it wants to buy Duron -- in addition to getting two new plants and a couple of hundred stores.

"The hold on the contractor is important to Sherwin-Williams," Allen said. "The trend is not do-it-yourself. It's do it for me. That is why this [deal] makes sense."

The purchase would "further strengthen Sherwin-Williams' lead at the top of the industry," said Eric Bosshard, an analyst at FTN Midwest Research.

Sherwin-Williams bought a company that had grown fairly conservative. In early 2002, Duron said it was abandoning an expansion into the Midwest and selling 27 stores in Chicago, Indianapolis and Ohio to PPG Industries and sticking to its East Coast market so it could "grow more profitably."

Duron had just opened 60 stores in the past five years. But the Midwest stores were the farthest from the factories and would have required the most long-term investment because this was a new market, the company said at the time.

Harry Feinberg, a young chemist in Baltimore, created Duron 54 years ago, buying half of the now-defunct Norman Paint Manufacturing Co. in the District. He had the apparently novel idea at the time of producing paint mostly for professional painters, according to the company's official history. By the 1960s, Duron had grown to a 10-store chain and moved to Beltsville.

Robert Feinberg will remain as chief executive for a year, and Duron said the rest of management will stay in place.

Sherwin-Williams is an even more venerable company, founded in 1866, the year after the Civil War ended, by Henry Sherwin and Edward Williams. It is now one of the largest paint companies in the world.

Its stock fell 80 cents, or about 2 percent, to $36.32 yesterday.