Which carpet manufacturer is owned by Berkshire Hathaway?

Which carpet manufacturer is owned by Berkshire Hathaway? The answer is Shaw Industries.

Shaw Industries Group is a major American flooring manufacturer and a wholly owned Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary. Headquartered in Dalton, Georgia, the company makes carpet as well as hardwood, laminate, resilient flooring, tile, and stone products.

Shaw’s roots go back to 1946, when Clarence Shaw bought a small commission dyeing business called Star Dye Company. The business expanded into carpet finishing and manufacturing, eventually becoming a publicly traded company known as Shaw Industries in 1971.

Berkshire Hathaway acquired Shaw on January 4, 2001. The purchase added a large manufacturing and flooring operation to Berkshire’s collection of businesses, which also includes insurance, rail transportation, utilities, candy, retail, and industrial companies.

The wording can cause a minor mix-up because Shaw is broader than a carpet maker: it now describes itself as a flooring company, with carpet remaining a core product. Armstrong, Interface, and Mohawk are separate flooring or carpet-industry names, not the Berkshire subsidiary asked for here.