Shaw Industries Group, Inc.

Who owns Shaw Industries?
Shaw Industries Group, Inc. is wholly owned by Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. Berkshire acquired a majority stake in 2000 and completed the purchase in 2002, in a deal valuing Shaw at roughly $2.4 billion.

Is Shaw Industries a public company?
No. Shaw traded publicly from 1971 until the early 2000s, when Berkshire Hathaway took it private. It no longer files separate public financial statements and reports more than $5 billion in annual sales.

What brands does Shaw Industries own?
Its brand family includes Shaw Floors, Anderson Tuftex, COREtec, Shaw Contract, Patcraft, Philadelphia Commercial, Shaw Sports Turf, Shawgrass, Southwest Greens, and Watershed Geo, covering residential and commercial flooring plus synthetic turf and geosynthetics.

Where does Shaw Industries manufacture?
The bulk of production sits in the southeastern United States, concentrated around Dalton, Georgia, with additional plants in Alabama, South Carolina, and other states, plus overseas operations that include facilities in China.

How many people work at Shaw Industries?
Shaw employs roughly 18,000 associates worldwide across more than 70 manufacturing and distribution facilities, according to its 2025 sustainability report.

Who founded Shaw Industries?
Clarence Shaw founded the company as Star Dye Company in Dalton, Georgia, in 1946. His son Robert E. Shaw transformed it into the world's largest carpet manufacturer and later founded competitor Engineered Floors.

Clarence Shaw founded Star Dye Company in Dalton, Georgia, in 1946 with two partners, taking advantage of the tufted textile industry growing up around the town. Star Dye dyed bedspreads at first, then carpet as tufting technology made wall-to-wall carpet affordable for middle-class American homes.

Clarence's son Robert E. Shaw, known as Bob Shaw, joined the business in the 1950s and reshaped it. In 1967 the family operations became Shaw Industries, and the company went public in 1971. Rather than remaining a finisher dependent on carpet mills for work, Shaw moved upstream into manufacturing, acquiring mills and building plants so that it controlled production from yarn to finished roll.

The 1980s and 1990s were an acquisition campaign. Shaw bought Cabin Crafts, Philadelphia Carpets, Queen Carpet, Salem Carpet, and dozens of other mills, consolidating a fragmented industry. It also bought its own fiber extrusion capability and built a trucking operation so retailers could get reliable delivery dates, a genuine differentiator in an industry notorious for late shipments.

By 2000, Shaw was the largest carpet maker in the world. That year Berkshire Hathaway acquired roughly 55 percent of the company for about $2 billion, and in 2002 it bought the remainder. Bob Shaw stayed on as chief executive until 2006, later founding rival Engineered Floors in 2009.

Under Berkshire, Shaw kept acquiring in adjacent categories: Anderson Hardwood in 2007 for hardwood flooring, US Floors in 2016 for the COREtec luxury vinyl line, and Southwest Greens for synthetic turf. The company consolidated its residential portfolio under the Shaw Floors name and its commercial work under Shaw Contract, Patcraft, and Philadelphia Commercial. The 2010s and 2020s also brought heavy investment in resilient flooring capacity as luxury vinyl overtook carpet as the growth category in American homes.

Shaw has published sustainability reporting for over two decades and was an early adopter of Cradle to Cradle certification in flooring. The company reports that nearly 90 percent of its products hold Cradle to Cradle certification at some level. Its EcoWorx backing, first for carpet tile and now for resilient flooring, is designed to be recycled or safely returned at end of life, and its 2025 EcoWorx Resilient launch was promoted as the industry's first zero-PVC commercial resilient floor.

The company operates a commercial carpet tile reclamation program and has documented reductions in energy, water, and waste intensity at its Georgia complex. Its 2025 sustainability report frames goals around climate, circularity, people, and supply chain. As a private subsidiary, Shaw's disclosures are voluntary rather than mandated, and the detail it publishes exceeds what many peers provide.

Shaw has appeared on Selling Power magazine's list of best companies to sell for for more than 22 consecutive years, most recently in 2025. Its EcoWorx Resilient product received an Edison Award, and individual product lines regularly win design recognition at industry events such as NeoCon. The company has also been cited by trade publications for its reclamation and Cradle to Cradle work.

Like all large carpet producers, Shaw faces scrutiny over PFAS chemistry historically used in stain-resistance treatments. The company phased out perfluorinated compounds from its residential lines and states that its products are made without PFAS-based stain treatments. Carpet recycling more broadly remains an industry challenge, with post-consumer carpet largely landfilled in the United States despite take-back programs. Shaw's Georgia plants have also drawn periodic state environmental attention typical of large dyeing and finishing operations, though no major consent decree or scandal is associated with the company.