McVay Brothers Contractors Inc., a longtime Spokane supplier and installer of siding and windows, has agreed to sell its window-manufacturing division to Window Products Inc., a big Spokane-based vinyl window maker.


Separately, Window Products has acquired a Salt Lake City window manufacturer.


The McVay Brothers window-manufacturing operation, which is located in a 30,000-square-foot plant at 1805 E. Trent, employs 62 workers and has annual sales in the $10 million to $11 million range, says McVay Brothers President Mark McVay. Window Products plans for now to keep the plant in that location and to hire all of its workers, says McVay, who following the sale will leave McVay Brothers to become vice president of sales and marketing at Window Products. Window Products will lease the building on Trent from McVay Brothers.


Terms of the transaction werent disclosed. Spokane business consultant Corporate Resources helped to arrange the sale.


McVay Brothers will continue to operate its longtime siding business, which is located at 3106 N. Argonne and has annual sales of around $8 million to $9 million, McVay says. That operation employs about 84 people here and another 16 at a wholesale warehouse in Tacoma, he says. McVays brother, Mike McVay, who currently is vice president of sales at McVay Brothers, will become that companys president after the sale of the window division closes, which is expected at the end of this month. McVay Brothers is owned by Mark and Mike McVay, along with their father, Harrison McVay Jr., and a partial employee-stock-ownership arrangement.


Window Products, a 20-year-old manufacturer of vinyl windows primarily for new-home construction, is located at 10507 E. Montgomery and employs just over 200 people, about 160 of whom work here, says company President Greg Simpson. It employs 12 people at a distribution facility in Nampa, Idaho, and another 30 at the Salt Lake City manufacturing operation, called Avante Windows, that it recently acquired, Simpson says.


Without the two acquisitions, Window Products was on track to post sales of around $25 million this year, he says. With them, he says, the company is expected to have sales close to $40 million, and will employ about 265 people.


The Avante acquisition will expand Window Products market into Utah and Southern California, where that window maker had sold its products, mostly for new construction. The Spokane company already serves Washington, Alaska, Oregon, Idaho, and Northern California, Simpson says.


That acquisition and the forthcoming purchase of the McVay window-manufacturing operation will place the Spokane company among the leaders in the window and patio-door industry in the western United States, he says.


Also, with the McVay Brothers acquisition, Window Products will enter the replacement window arena, having so far focused on new construction.


Says McVay, Theres virtually no product overlap. We have very complementary products.


Initially, the McVay Brothers window plant on East Trent will continue to make windows under the McVay Brothers name, which will be sold through wholesale distributors and through McVay Brothers, he says. Window Products will take advantage of efficiencies by distributing those windows in the same trucks that currently haul Window Products windows throughout the Northwest.


McVay says splitting up the McVay Brothers operations made sense to him and his brother because the combined operation was getting too big to run like a family-owned business, and because the siding business and the window-making business were so different.


The window-making business, he says, grew well beyond what we ever expected.


McVay adds that since he and his brother both are marketing people, once the window-making business is sold off, it wouldnt make sense for both of them to remain with siding business. He says they remain best friends.


He says the marriage between Window Products and the McVay Brothers window operation will be a good one, combining McVay Brothers marketing expertise with Window Products operational and customer-service expertise.


Window Products, which was started here in 1982 by Ed Fry, is still owned by the Fry family, though family members arent involved in its day-to-day operations, Simpson says. The vinyl window makers manufacturing complex in the Spokane Valley has expanded several times and now includes about 70,000 square feet of space.


McVay Brothers was formed here in 1955 by brothers Warren McVay and Harrison McVay Sr. Mark McVay took over management of the company in the mid-1990s, when his father retired. For years it concentrated on providing roofing and siding, but later phased out its roofing operations.


It got into the window-manufacturing business in 1993, when it bought a composite-window plant here operated by North Country Thermal Line Inc., of Mandan, N.D. At that time, the plant, then located on East Knox Avenue, employed just 14 people.


McVay Brothers siding business serves parts of Washington, Montana, Idaho, and northeastern Oregon, while its window division sells products throughout much of the western U.S.