W.W. Grainger, Inc.

What does W.W. Grainger sell?
Grainger distributes maintenance, repair, and operations products: motors, fasteners, safety gear, tools, cleaning supplies, electrical and plumbing components, and related industrial items. It offers about 1.5 million products in its high-touch business and more than 11 million through Zoro.

Is Grainger publicly traded?
Yes. W.W. Grainger trades on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker GWW and has been public since 1967. It is a member of the S&P 500.

Who owns Zoro.com?
Zoro is a wholly owned subsidiary of W.W. Grainger, launched in 2011 as an online-only platform for smaller business customers. It is part of Grainger's Endless Assortment segment.

What is MonotaRO?
MonotaRO is Japan's largest online MRO distributor. Grainger holds a controlling majority stake, while MonotaRO shares trade separately on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Its model inspired the creation of Zoro.

Where is Grainger headquartered?
Grainger is headquartered in Lake Forest, Illinois, a suburb north of Chicago. The company was founded in Chicago in 1927 by William W. Grainger.

Did Grainger leave the United Kingdom?
Yes. Grainger completed its exit from the UK market in 2025 by divesting Cromwell Group, its British MRO distribution business, recording a loss on the transaction in the third quarter of that year.

William Wallace Grainger, an electrical engineer, founded the company in Chicago in 1927 to sell electric motors wholesale to businesses. He incorporated it in 1928 and opened a branch in Kansas City in 1933, beginning the geographic expansion that would define the company. During World War II, Grainger supplied electric motors and related equipment to government customers, and the postwar industrial boom accelerated its growth.

The company's printed catalog became one of the most recognizable objects in American industry. Known to generations of maintenance workers simply as "the Grainger book," it grew to thousands of pages listing hundreds of thousands of products and functioned as the default purchasing reference for factories and institutions across the country. Grainger went public in 1967 and used its scale to build a national network of branches and distribution centers offering next-day availability on an unusually broad assortment.

David Grainger, the founder's son, led the company through its decades of national expansion and oversaw its international moves. In 1996, Grainger acquired Acklands Ltd., making it the largest industrial distributor in Canada. The company experimented internationally with mixed results, including a later-abandoned China expansion in the 1990s.

The digital era reshaped the portfolio. In 2009, Grainger took an initial stake in MonotaRO, a Japanese online MRO seller founded in 2000, and built it into a controlling majority position; MonotaRO became the model for Grainger's digital strategy. In 2011, Grainger launched Zoro Tools, later shortened to Zoro, applying MonotaRO's e-commerce playbook to the US market. That same year it acquired Fabory, a European fastener distributor, and in 2015 it purchased Cromwell Group, the largest independent MRO distributor in the United Kingdom.

The 2020s brought portfolio pruning. Grainger divested Fabory in 2023 and completed its exit from the UK market in 2025 by divesting Cromwell, recording a loss on the transaction in the third quarter of that year. The moves left the company concentrated on two clear engines: the North American high-touch business and the Endless Assortment digital platforms.

D.G. Macpherson has served as CEO since October 2016 and added the chairman role in 2017. Under his leadership the company has emphasized its dual-model strategy, supply chain automation, and pricing discipline. Grainger passed $17 billion in annual sales in 2024 and reported $17.9 billion for 2025, marking more than five decades of consecutive annual dividend increases, a streak that places it among the small group of US Dividend Kings.

Grainger publishes an annual corporate responsibility report covering emissions, waste, and workforce metrics. Distribution-heavy business means its footprint concentrates in logistics and packaging, and the company has invested in renewable energy procurement and network efficiency. Its ESG posture is conventional for a large distributor and is not a primary driver of the investment or customer story.

• Fortune 500: A longstanding member of the list of largest US companies.
• Dividend King: More than 50 consecutive years of annual dividend increases.
• Fortune Most Admired Companies: Regularly ranked in the Wholesalers: Diversified category.

Grainger's regulatory record is comparatively clean for its size. The company settled a 2024 US Justice Department matter related to allegations of inaccurate billing on government contracts without admitting wrongdoing. Its 2025 UK exit generated a reported loss but no dispute. No material product safety recalls or major litigation dominate the company's public record as of November 2026.