Building Materials Holding Corporation Provides Outlook On Third Quarter 2000 Results.

Business Editors

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 9, 2000

Building Materials Holding Corporation (NASDAQ: BMHC), a leading provider of building materials and services to professional contractors and builders, today announced that primarily due to deflation of commodity wood product prices, which for the third quarter were at an eight year low, it expects third quarter sales to be approximately $270 million and earnings per share to be in the range of $0.51 per share to $0.55 per share. This compares to current consensus analysts' estimates of approximately $0.68 per share.

"Historically low prices of commodity wood products, which comprise approximately 43% of our year-to-date sales, impacted sales and earnings for the quarter," said Robert E. Mellor, President and Chief Executive Officer of Building Materials Holding Corporation. "We believe that our continuing strategy of diversifying into value-added products and services, as well as the framing business, helped to soften the effect of deflation in commodity wood product prices, and we remain committed to this strategy."

Commenting on the fourth quarter, Mr. Mellor said, "Based on current estimated commodity wood market data, we anticipate these prices in BMHC's product mix to continue at current levels on average through the remainder of the year. These anticipated price levels, should they persist, would be approximately 20% below the fourth quarter of 1999 which we expect will impact BMHC's performance in the fourth quarter. However, building permit activity, on average, remains relatively stable in most of the Company's markets. In addition, the Company's value-added and framing businesses are performing ahead of prior year, we continue to anticipate good performance in the future and believe that we are continuing to gain market share. We plan to provide an update on commodity wood product prices when we report our final third quarter results."

BMHC will hold a teleconference today at 2:00 p.m. Pacific to discuss expected third quarter results. The teleconference will be Webcast and can be accessed at the Company's Website at www.bmhc.com or at www.streetfusion.com. To access the teleconference by phone please dial [phone]. BMHC expects to report final third quarter results on October 24, 2000.

Building Materials Holding Corporation, through its wholly owned subsidiaries BMC West and BMHC Framing, is a leading provider of building materials and services to professional new residential, commercial and industrial contractors and builders as well as professional repair and remodel contractors. The Company currently operates 56 building materials centers in California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. In addition, BMHC Framing owns a minority interest in a framing and a distribution business in Arizona, California and Nevada. Additional information on Building Materials Holding Corporation can be found at its website, located at www.bmhc.com.

Certain statements made in this news release constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors are discussed in detail in Building Materials Holding Corporation's Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1999. Given these uncertainties, prospective investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. The Company disclaims any obligation to update any such factors or to publicly announce the results of any revisions to any of the forward-looking statements contained in the Annual Report on Form 10-K or this news release.