The Builders Merchants Federation (BMF) has sold 55% of its construction industry database e-Xact to S&J Management Services.
BMF director Jeremy Hawksley said the sell-off decision was made as the dot.com service needed ‘quite a lot of capital investment’ to take it forward. ‘We were spending a lot of time managing and running it and felt it would be better on a commercial footing’, he said.
The database, launched by the BMF in 1999, can be accessed at www.bmf-exact.com and orders can be placed by either EDI (electronic data interchange) or, as a new feature, by e-mail. Eventually customers will be able to place orders on the internet. Other additions to the service, which lists 150,000 products, are improved data quality and wider web product catalogues.
