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Sherwin-Williams makes and sells paints and coatings for homes, cars, and factories.
Sherwin-Williams is a paint and coatings giant, and it runs two very different businesses under one roof. The first is its paint stores group, which is the biggest slice of the pie. It sells paint, primer, and supplies directly to professional painters, contractors, and homeowners through thousands of company-owned stores, mostly in the US. You have probably seen the bright blue-and-white "Sherwin-Williams" sign. These stores are the engine of the company, and the pros who shop there keep coming back because the staff knows the products and the stores can match any color. Think of it as a trusted corner shop that happens to supply millions of gallons of paint a year to people who paint for a living.
The second business is the consumer brands group, which makes paint you find at big-box stores like Home Depot and Lowe's. This includes famous names like Valspar, Dutch Boy, and HGTV Home. It also sells through independent dealers. Then there's performance coatings, the smallest but most industrial piece. This segment makes protective and decorative coatings for cars, trucks, airplanes, and factories. If you have ever seen a shiny car finish or a bridge that shrugs off rust, that likely came from here. This part sells to manufacturers and refinishers, not to you directly.
The company started way back in 1866 in Cleveland, Ohio, where it is still headquartered. It grew partly by buying rivals, including Valspar in 2017, which added a huge chunk of consumer and industrial paint business. Sherwin-Williams makes money by selling a lot of paint at a healthy markup, and it generates a pile of spare cash. It spends that cash on opening new stores, paying dividends, buying back its own stock, and paying down debt. In the last few years, it has faced slower growth in do-it-yourself paint as homeowners pulled back, but its professional painter business has stayed strong. It has also made price increases stick, which helps protect profits when raw material costs move around.
Saved answer · last researched 12 Oct 2026