Our Story

The Peter Allan Building Material Trust was first registered in September 1995 as a joint venture with Pennypinchers; operating both a specialist Trusses & Timber supplies, and Retail Building materials division, a profitable business in its own right which was sold two years later. During this time, we supplied structural timber, laminated beams, ceiling and flooring to all of the Pennypinchers outlets, whilst the trusses were manufactured and distributed from our premises in Blackheath to contractors and roof erectors throughout the Cape Town Metropolitan area, Boland, Overberg and West Coast regions.

The range of product on offer was further enhanced in 2003 when Jurie van Graan joined as a partner in the business and opened up the finger-jointing, processing and treating facility, which carries our own SABS mark, transforming the business into a fully-fledged timber merchant.

Owing to the severe shortage of timber in the Western Cape, Thesen George – through its parent company P G Bison Southern Cape (Pty) Ltd – acquired Pennypinchers share of the joint venture, which proved to be critical in securing supply of timber for our customers. At this time, we also sold the Trusses division to Pennypinchers. Since then, we have grown from strength to strength in our sole focus of supplying the corporate builders merchants, private building material businesses, truss and furniture manufacturers throughout the Cape Town Metropolitan area, Boland, Overberg, West Coast, Namaqualand and Namibia regions.

After 10 mutually beneficial years, in July 2021 Thesen and the Peter Allan Building Material Trust amicably agreed the terms for Thesen’s exit from the partnership and we commenced trading as Peter Allan Timber.

As was true when the business was founded, our focus remains on sourcing high quality pine products and forging strong relationships with our suppliers so as to ensure continuity of supply for our valued customers. This is underpinned by our dedicated staff and unrivalled customer services. We champion sourcing the highest quality pine products, holding an unmatched level of stock and breadth of products.