MaterialsXchange launches with first raw materials transaction

MaterialsXchange, 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. The inaugural transaction 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.

Historically, the commodity 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,” adds Thomas Mende, president and CEO of Binderholz Timber Inc. “Our organization believes being open to innovations is the path of progress. 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, vice president of purchasing at Hart Lumber added, “We see the MaterialsXchange platform as a tool that our team
can use to free up time for focusing on customer service.”

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.

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