Wickes

Target Profile

• Company: Wickes Group plc
• Jurisdiction: England and Wales
• Headquarters: Vision House, 19 Colonial Way, Watford, Hertfordshire
• Sector: Specialist home improvement retail (DIY, Do-It-For-Me, local trade)
• Relevant operating footprint: Approximately 228–230 stores, exclusively in Great Britain; no operations in Israel or the Occupied Palestinian Territory
• Key executives or governance actors: David Wood (CEO), Mark George (CFO), Christopher Rogers (Non-Executive Chairman), Mark Clare (Senior Independent Director), Sonita Alleyne (Non-Executive Director)
• BDS-1000 score: 161
• Tier: E (0–199)

Executive Summary

Wickes Group plc is a UK-listed specialist home improvement retailer, demerged from Travis Perkins plc in April 2021 and listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE: WIX.L). It operates approximately 228–230 stores exclusively in Great Britain, serving DIY consumers, Do-It-For-Me customers, and local trade professionals. The company has no defence manufacturing function, no export operations, and no physical or corporate presence in Israel or the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

The BDS-1000 audit assigns Wickes a score of 161 (Tier E). This score is not zero: it reflects a real and confirmed economic relationship with two Israeli-headquartered consumer goods manufacturers — Keter Group (Herzliya) and Palram Industries (Ramat Yohanan) — from whom Wickes actively sources plastic sheds, garden storage, and polycarbonate greenhouse products for retail sale in the UK.¹² These supply relationships are sustained and actively co-marketed, as evidenced by dedicated brand buying guides on the Wickes website. A secondary digital signal — a single-source, unconfirmed indication that Wickes’ IT environment has included Check Point Software Technologies (Tel Aviv) firewall infrastructure — contributes a small amount to the V-DIG domain score.³

No military supply chain, no provision of technology to Israeli state bodies, no foreign direct investment in Israel, no lobbying activity on behalf of Israeli interests, and no BDS campaign specifically targeting Wickes has been identified. The dominant domain is V-ECON, which drives the composite score. Wickes’ annual reporting treats its Israeli-origin supply relationships as commercially routine, with no acknowledgment of occupation context, a posture documented under V-POL as business-as-usual normalisation by silence. The score does not reach Tier D because no direct military, digital, or political engagement with Israeli state bodies has been established.

Timeline of Relevant Events

Corporate Overview

Wickes Group plc is the corporate entity through which the Wickes brand — a UK specialist home improvement retailer — operates as a standalone listed company following its April 2021 demerger from Travis Perkins plc.⁴⁵ The demerger was governed by a Transitional Services Agreement (TSA) under which Travis Perkins continued to supply certain shared infrastructure for a defined post-separation period, creating some ambiguity about which technology relationships active in the immediate post-demerger period reflect inherited versus independently procured configurations.⁴

The company’s product portfolio spans timber and building materials, kitchens, bathrooms, paint, garden buildings, floor coverings, and related accessories. It does not manufacture the majority of products it sells; it is a retail and trade distributor. Its three principal revenue channels are retail (DIY and trade counter), Design and Installation services (kitchens and bathrooms), and — since May 2024 — residential solar installation via the Solar Fast subsidiary.¹⁷¹⁸

Wickes is incorporated in England and Wales with registered and operational headquarters in Watford, Hertfordshire. Travis Perkins retains no ownership stake or governance rights post-demerger. Major institutional shareholders include Pzena Investment Management LLC, Jupiter Asset Management, BlackRock Investment Management (UK), and Harris Associates LP — standard Western institutional investors with no identified Israeli state or sovereign-wealth connection.¹⁹

The Wickes brand originated in the United States (founded by Richard Wickes in Michigan) and the UK retail operation passed through several owners before becoming a Travis Perkins division. No Israeli founding, incorporation origin, or national identity is associated with the Wickes Group plc legal entity.²⁰

Domain Summaries

V-MIL: Military

Mechanism of Involvement

Wickes Group plc has no identified mechanism of involvement in Israeli military supply chains. The company operates as a UK domestic home improvement retailer with no defence contracting function, no export operations, and no dual-use product manufacturing capability. No contract, tender award, framework agreement, or memorandum of understanding between Wickes and the Israeli Ministry of Defence, the Israel Defence Forces, the Israel Prison Service, or the Israel Border Police has been identified in any public procurement record.¹⁸²¹

Wickes does not appear in UK Ministry of Defence Contracts Finder records as a prime contractor or subcontractor for any defence-related work.²² It is absent from SIBAT (Israel’s Defence Export and Defence Cooperation Directorate) listings, international defence exhibition catalogues, and Israeli defence procurement registries. The company has not been identified as a participant in any defence trade exhibition, bilateral defence industry forum, or government-sponsored defence supply chain programme in any jurisdiction.

The prior research memo speculated that Wickes might function as a “Tier 3 or 4” supplier to the UK MOD via facilities management contractors. This claim has no documentary corroboration in any procurement record, contract notice, or named source, and is explicitly excluded from evidential conclusions in this audit.

Wickes’ product range — timber, building materials, kitchens, bathrooms, paint, garden buildings, and accessories — has no identified intersection with controlled sub-systems, critical components, or munitions precursor materials.¹⁸ The company functions as a retail distributor, not a manufacturer, of substantially all products in its catalogue, and its catalogue contains no ruggedised, tactical, mil-spec, or defence-grade product variants.

The audit examined the polycarbonate materials used in Palram Canopia greenhouse and shed panel products stocked by Wickes. Polycarbonate has theoretical dual-use potential (bulletproof laminates, riot shields), but no procurement or contract evidence links Wickes-stocked consumer-grade polycarbonate garden products to any military or security end-user in any configuration.²²³ These products are standard civilian consumer goods sold exclusively through civilian retail channels.

Wickes operates a TradePro loyalty programme that affiliates with Building Heroes, a UK charity supporting military veterans transitioning into construction careers, and is listed on TroopScout as a military discount merchant.²⁴²⁵ These reflect standard UK corporate community engagement with the armed forces covenant and carry no defence procurement or supply-chain significance.

Any MOD or defence-adjacent supply contracts potentially held by the Wickes business unit under Travis Perkins plc prior to the April 2021 demerger cannot be separately attributed to the standalone Wickes entity from publicly available records.⁴ This constitutes an identified evidence gap; no assumption of continuity or discontinuity is made.

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

The strongest challenge to the near-zero V-MIL score is the unconfirmed historical status of Keter Group’s operations at the Barkan Industrial Park in the occupied West Bank. Who Profits Research Center documented Keter’s operations at Barkan — one of the largest settlement industrial zones in the territory — in approximately 2015–2019, and noted that export-facing production was being relocated to facilities within sovereign Israel.¹³ The current operational status of any residual Keter presence at Barkan as of 2025–2026 has not been confirmed from available sources. If Barkan operations are ongoing, this would add a West Bank manufacturing dimension to the Wickes supply chain. However, even if confirmed, this would relate to civilian consumer-goods manufacturing in a settlement industrial zone — not to military supply — and would affect V-ECON rather than V-MIL materially.

A second gap concerns the demerger legacy: no public record separately itemises whether any Travis Perkins-era defence-adjacent supply arrangement was retained, transferred, or terminated in connection with the Wickes business unit post-April 2021.⁴ Resolving this gap would require access to internal Travis Perkins procurement records not publicly available.

A third potential challenge — that Trademo shipping data shows an “Israel” node in Wickes’ supply chain — is assessed as consistent with the three identified Israeli-headquartered commercial suppliers (Palram, Keter, Caesarstone) and does not support a defence logistics inference without transaction-level confirmation.²⁶

These gaps do not materially affect the V-MIL score. Even under the most adverse reasonable assumptions (Barkan operations ongoing; some Travis Perkins legacy relationship retained), Wickes remains a civilian retailer with no identified military supply chain. The score would not move into a higher tier.

Named Entities and Evidence Map

V-DIG: Digital

Mechanism of Involvement

Wickes’ digital footprint in relation to Israeli-origin technology is limited to a single indirect, unconfirmed indicator and a structural cloud infrastructure dependency. No direct provision of technology to Israeli state bodies, no Israeli-origin AI deployment, no Israeli-origin surveillance or biometric systems, and no Israeli R&D centres have been identified.

The enterprise technology stack confirmed for Wickes includes SAP Commerce Cloud (German-headquartered SAP SE) for e-commerce, OneView Commerce (US-headquartered) for point-of-sale piloting, Blue Yonder Luminate Planning (US-headquartered, Panasonic-majority-owned) on Azure for supply chain AI, and AdviserPlus Empower (UK-headquartered) on Azure for HR case management.^6112728 None of these platforms carry Israeli-origin attribution.

The one Israeli-origin digital signal with any evidential basis is an indirect technographic indication — a named interim senior IT security consultant’s public professional portfolio — listing Wickes as a client engagement and referencing the Check Point technology environment as a key infrastructure variable.³ Check Point Software Technologies is an Israeli-founded, Tel Aviv-headquartered cybersecurity company and one of the largest network security vendors globally. This constitutes a single-source, indirect indication of a vendor relationship; it is not corroborated by any Wickes corporate filing, vendor press release, or second-source technographic evidence. The scope of any deployment — whether legacy (inherited from Travis Perkins), post-demerger standalone, peripheral or core — cannot be determined from available evidence. A claim from the same source regarding SentinelOne (US-listed, Israeli co-founders, significant Israeli R&D) within the same Wickes engagement cannot be independently corroborated and is treated as unconfirmed.³

The confirmed structural relationship of greatest analytical significance is Wickes’ use of Microsoft Azure as its primary enterprise cloud platform. Azure hosts at least the Blue Yonder Luminate Planning system and the AdviserPlus Empower HR platform.⁶¹¹ Microsoft, alongside Google, is a contractual cloud infrastructure provider to the Israeli government and IDF under Project Nimbus, a contract initially valued at approximately $1.2 billion awarded in 2021 and operationally ongoing as of 2025. The structural relationship this creates is: Wickes is a paying Microsoft Azure customer; Microsoft Azure is a Project Nimbus contractor for the Israeli state and military. Wickes does not operate workloads in Azure’s Israel region, and there is no direct contractual or commercial relationship between Wickes and Project Nimbus. The connection is indirect and structural — Wickes’ Azure spend contributes to Microsoft’s global revenue, a portion of which funds Project Nimbus. This is a relationship shared by virtually all major UK enterprise Azure customers and does not constitute direct participation or endorsement. The rubric’s “Customer Cap” and “No Transitive Guilt” provisions apply.

No public evidence has been identified of Wickes deploying facial recognition, biometric identification, behavioural analytics, or any comparable surveillance technology in its store estate. Specifically, no deployment of Trigo, Trax Retail, AnyVision/Oosto, or BriefCam systems has been identified.⁶⁷ Wickes’ in-store staff communications are provided by VoCoVo, a UK-headquartered company.²⁹ The company does retail a Netatmo Welcome indoor security camera — a consumer product from a French company (Legrand Group subsidiary) — but as the point-of-sale intermediary, not the operator of any biometric data collection system.³⁰

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

The primary challenge to the V-DIG score is the unconfirmed Check Point relationship. If confirmed at full enterprise-network scale, Magnitude (M) for V-DIG would increase to approximately 3.0–4.0, raising the V-DIG domain score to approximately 0.77–1.14. This would remain small in composite terms and would not affect the overall Tier E classification. The score is already conservative, scored at the low end of Band 3 (procurement of Israeli-origin enterprise security software) consistent with the Customer Cap constraint.

A second gap concerns mobile application SDK analysis. Wickes operates consumer and trade customer-facing mobile applications (including TradePro). Israeli-origin mobile attribution and analytics platforms — notably AppsFlyer (headquartered in Herzliya, Israel) — are widely embedded in UK retail mobile applications and would not appear in corporate disclosures. Technical SDK analysis of the Wickes mobile apps has not been conducted in this audit phase; the presence or absence of such platforms cannot be confirmed without it. This is an identified evidence gap.

A third gap concerns the programmatic advertising supply chain. Wickes uses Microsoft Advertising for digital brand campaigns.³¹ The downstream ad-tech ecosystem includes Israeli-origin platforms such as Taboola; indirect programmatic exposure cannot be ruled out without a live ad-tech stack audit.

The claims regarding CyberArk (Petah Tikva, Israel) and Computacenter/Softcat as Wickes technology partners are unconfirmed and excluded from scoring. A name-collision false positive — “James Wickes” as CEO of Cloudview, a UK video surveillance company — was identified and resolved; it has no bearing on Wickes Group plc.³²

Named Entities and Evidence Map

V-ECON: Economic

Mechanism of Involvement

Wickes’ primary economic connection to Israel operates through procurement — as a customer of Israeli-headquartered manufacturers, not as an investor, joint-venture partner, or market entrant. Two confirmed, ongoing supply relationships with Israeli-origin companies are the central economic finding of this audit.

Keter Group is an Israeli-founded consumer goods manufacturer headquartered in Herzliya, Israel, producing resin-based garden sheds, outdoor storage, deck boxes, and garden furniture. Wickes operates a dedicated Keter buying guide on its website and stocks a broad range of named Keter product lines.¹ The presence of a dedicated co-marketing buying guide indicates an active trading agreement — a deliberate vendor-retailer partnership rather than incidental product stocking. The relationship was confirmed as ongoing through 2024–2025. UK procurement flows from Wickes via the UK sales and distribution subsidiary Keter UK Ltd (Companies House No. 02773431, registered in Redruth, Cornwall) to the Israeli parent.³³ Keter Group was acquired by BC Partners (European private equity) in 2016; the Israeli parent remains the manufacturing and IP-holding entity.³⁴

Palram Industries Ltd is an Israeli manufacturer headquartered at Ramat Yohanan Kibbutz, listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE: PLRM). Wickes stocks the Palram Canopia range of polycarbonate sheds, greenhouses, and gazebos as confirmed, live product listings.²³⁵ Palram’s primary manufacturing is at the Teradion Industrial Park, Misgav, within Israel’s pre-1967 borders. UK distribution operates via Palram Applications UK, which acts as the importer of record for UK-bound consignments; however, the specific Companies House details of this subsidiary were not confirmed during audit preparation. The relationship was confirmed as ongoing through 2024–2025.

A third Israeli-headquartered supplier, Caesarstone Ltd (NASDAQ: CSTE, with founding and ongoing connection to Kibbutz Sdot Yam), supplies engineered-stone worktop products listed as a premium option in Wickes’ bespoke quartz worktop range.³⁶ Whether Wickes sources Caesarstone directly from Israel or via a UK-based distributor intermediary is not established from publicly available sources. Caesarstone’s manufacturing is located within sovereign Israel. No West Bank manufacturing operations for Caesarstone have been identified.

These three supply relationships constitute outbound procurement flows from a UK retailer to Israeli manufacturers. They represent Wickes as a customer of Israeli industry — generating commercial revenue for Israeli-headquartered businesses — but they are procurement relationships, not capital investment, joint ventures, or operational presence.

Wickes has no identified foreign direct investment in Israel, no R&D centres, no office or warehouse presence, no Israeli staff, and generates no revenue from Israeli market operations.¹⁸²⁰ Israel is not referenced as a market or operational geography in any Wickes corporate communication reviewed. No Israeli sovereign bonds, shares in Israeli companies, or Israel-focused investment funds appear in Wickes’ financial disclosures. No Israeli state entity is identified as a significant shareholder of Wickes.

The aggregate procurement spend on Keter and Palram products is not publicly disclosed in Wickes’ financial statements. Based on the product categories involved (garden sheds, greenhouses, outdoor storage) within a broad home improvement portfolio, neither supplier constitutes a majority or critical share of Wickes’ overall product mix. The relationships are, however, recurring, established (multi-year), and actively co-marketed — placing them firmly in the Sustained Trade band of the V-ECON rubric.

The V-ECON domain score of approximately 2.25 is the highest of the four domains and drives the composite BDS-1000 score. The score reflects confirmed, direct commercial contracts with entities whose Israeli parents are the manufacturing and IP-holding entities, combined with a Magnitude score reflecting the modest but established and multi-year nature of the trade, and a Proximity score reflecting that the direct contractual counterparty is a UK subsidiary one step removed from the Israeli parent.

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

The primary uncertainty in V-ECON is the aggregate quantum of Wickes’ procurement spend on Keter and Palram products, which is not publicly disclosed. If these suppliers represent a materially larger share of Wickes’ product mix than the available evidence suggests, the Magnitude score could rise toward 5.5–6.0, increasing V-ECON to approximately 2.50–2.69 and BRS to approximately 175–178 — still within Tier E. The score is not sensitive to this gap in a tier-changing way.

A second challenge concerns Keter’s historical Barkan Industrial Park operations. Who Profits documented Keter’s operations in this occupied West Bank settlement industrial zone in 2015–2019, with evidence of relocation toward pre-1967 sites to comply with EU rules-of-origin requirements.¹³³⁷ The current status of any residual Barkan production as of 2025–2026 is unconfirmed. If Barkan operations are ongoing and Wickes-sold Keter goods originate there, this would implicate Wickes in purchasing settlement-manufactured goods — a materially different policy and reputational exposure than purchasing Israeli-manufactured goods, though the V-ECON score arithmetic would not change fundamentally. This gap requires live verification against Who Profits’ current Keter entry, Keter corporate disclosures, and UK import records.

A third gap concerns Starplast II Industries Ltd (Alon Tavor Industrial Zone, Afula, Israel), alleged by prior research to supply products to Wickes via general plastic storage listings or marketplace routes. This claim was not independently corroborated and is excluded from scoring pending confirmation from live product listing and import record review.

The claimed ZIM Integrated Shipping Services connection — based on route probability inference rather than any bill of lading, freight contract, or customs record — is excluded from scoring entirely. No documentary evidence links Wickes to ZIM.³⁸

Named Entities and Evidence Map

V-POL: Political

Mechanism of Involvement

Wickes’ political profile in relation to the Israel-Palestine conflict is characterised by systematic absence of engagement — neither advocacy for Israeli positions nor advocacy for Palestinian rights — combined with a documented asymmetry in how the company treats geopolitically sensitive events in its public reporting.

No public corporate statement by Wickes Group plc addressing the Israel-Palestine conflict, the Gaza war (October 2023 onwards), or the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory has been identified in any annual report, RNS regulatory filing, press release, or corporate website reviewed across the full October 2023 to audit-date window.¹⁸³⁹ This silence is the primary V-POL finding.

The asymmetry is documented with precision. The 2022 Annual Report explicitly names “The war in Ukraine” as a material geopolitical event affecting Wickes’ business, citing its role in driving energy prices and the broader cost-of-living crisis.⁷⁴⁰ This represents a clear precedent for the company naming geopolitical events in public disclosures when judged commercially material. The 2023 and 2024 Annual Reports contain no identified reference to “Gaza,” “Palestine,” “Israel,” or “Middle East conflict” in the sections reviewed.¹²¹⁸ The asymmetry — Ukraine named, Gaza silent — is a consistent, multi-cycle pattern across reporting years rather than a one-off omission.

No lobbying activity, no political donations to pro-Israel organisations, no affiliation with Conservative Friends of Israel, Labour Friends of Israel, or BICOM, and no participation in Brand Israel or Israeli government cultural diplomacy has been identified.⁷¹⁸ No financial contributions to the Jewish National Fund UK, Friends of the IDF, or equivalent organisations appear in Wickes’ disclosed charitable and community investment activities.⁷ Wickes’ disclosed charitable partnerships are with The Brain Tumour Charity⁴¹ and UK-focused equity, diversity, and inclusion programmes.⁴²

Wickes is not a member of the UK Register of Consultant Lobbyists. No evidence of Wickes lobbying for or against anti-BDS legislative provisions — including relevant clauses of the UK Procurement Act 2023 — has been identified. No BDS campaign, organised consumer boycott, or institutional divestment initiative specifically targeting Wickes Group plc has been identified in BDS Movement publications, Palestine Solidarity Campaign action alerts, War on Want campaign materials, or Corporate Watch records.

The union context is relevant as a contrast. USDAW, which represents part of Wickes’ workforce, publicly called in 2024 for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.¹⁶ This is a formally documented, publicly stated union-level position. No evidence that Wickes management has contested, suppressed, or responded to these union communications has been identified, and the union position does not constitute a corporate Wickes position.

The acquisition of Solar Fast in May 2024 is relevant to V-POL insofar as prior research alleges — without corroboration — that Solar Fast uses SolarEdge Technologies inverters (Israeli-headquartered, NASDAQ-listed). If confirmed, this would constitute an additional Israeli-origin supply chain node introduced post-2024 and would be noted in V-ECON; it does not generate a distinct V-POL finding absent evidence of lobbying or political positioning around that procurement.¹⁷

The 2025 AGM Notice includes a standard Resolution 14 for corporate authority to make political donations within prescribed Companies Act 2006 thresholds — a routine UK corporate governance measure required where participation in policy consultation might technically constitute a “political donation.”⁴³ No evidence has been identified that this authority was exercised in connection with Israeli defence policy, UK arms export policy, or related matters.

Board-level biographical review identified one ambiguity: a “Christopher Rogers” appears in a 1989 Hansard parliamentary debate in a context related to Conservative Friends of Israel.⁴⁴ This record predates the current Wickes Non-Executive Chairman’s documented career profile by many years. The individuals are assessed as likely distinct, but the connection cannot be definitively excluded without further biographical evidence. No current (post-2020) evidence links the Wickes Chairman to any pro-Israel advocacy organisation. CEO David Wood’s prior Tesco career (2010–2015 period) overlapped with documented Tesco settlement-goods sourcing controversies; no public record links Wood personally to those sourcing decisions or to pro-Israel advocacy activity.¹⁸

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

The strongest challenge to the V-POL score is methodological: the absence of public corporate statements on Gaza may reflect legal caution, investor relations advice, or a deliberate policy of political neutrality rather than tacit endorsement of Israeli government conduct. Many UK retail companies maintain comparable silence. The Ukraine precedent is the most significant counter to this argument — it demonstrates Wickes will name geopolitical events when judged commercially material — but one cannot rule out that the company has separately assessed Gaza as outside the domain of commercially material disclosure.

A second limitation is that supplier-level labelling and disclosure practices have not been fully verified. Palram Canopia products are sold without explicit country-of-manufacture labelling in the reviewed product listings.² Whether packaging or in-store labelling discloses Israeli manufacture to UK consumers is unverified and requires physical inspection or supplier data. If Israeli-origin labelling were present, it would further substantiate the “business-as-usual” political characterisation; its absence from online listings is consistent with that characterisation but not its proof.

A third gap is the unverified TCS and DXC Technology IT contract claims. Prior research identifies a Find a Tender notice for an IT managed services contract and cites a Breakroom job listing as indirect evidence of a DXC Technology–Wickes relationship.⁸⁴⁵ DXC Technology’s corporate history includes legacy HP/EDS involvement in Israeli “Basel System” biometric checkpoint infrastructure, documented by Who Profits.⁴⁶ This inferential chain — unverified contract to unverified DXC relationship to historical Israeli biometric operations — has not been established by direct evidence and is excluded from scoring.

Named Entities and Evidence Map

Cross-Domain Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

Across all four domains, the audit’s central structural limitation is the unavailability of transaction-level procurement data. Wickes does not publish itemised supplier spend in its financial statements. The aggregate value of Wickes’ procurement from Keter and Palram — the two confirmed Israeli-HQ suppliers — is unknown, meaning the economic scale of the relationship cannot be precisely calibrated. This affects V-ECON Magnitude and, to a lesser degree, the composite score, but does not affect the tier classification under plausible scenarios.

The Check Point cybersecurity indicator (V-DIG) remains single-source and unconfirmed. The Keter Barkan West Bank operations (relevant to both V-MIL and V-ECON) remain unconfirmed post-2020. The Solar Fast/SolarEdge hardware claim (V-POL, V-ECON) is unverified. The DXC Technology IT contract chain (V-POL) is unverified. These four outstanding uncertainties are the primary open questions for future audit phases and represent the limits of what can be concluded from public evidence alone.

A further structural limitation applies to the V-POL domain: the absence of corporate statements on Gaza is documented but its interpretation is contested. Business-as-usual silence is a real and measurable political act (or omission) but it does not carry the evidentiary weight of a positive advocacy act. The score reflects this distinction.

No evidence of any kind has been found placing Wickes in a materially higher tier. The aggregate picture — a UK domestic retailer purchasing civilian consumer goods from two Israeli manufacturers, with possible legacy Israeli-origin cybersecurity infrastructure, while maintaining business-as-usual silence on the occupation — is internally consistent across all four domains and is accurately represented by BDS-1000 Tier E.

Named Entities and Evidence Map

BDS-1000 Score

Composite BDS-1000 Score: 161 — Tier E (0–199)

V-ECON is the dominant domain (V_MAX = 2.25). The composite formula applies a 20% discount to the sum of the remaining domain scores (0.01 + 0.54 + 1.07 = 1.62 × 0.20 = 0.324). The final BRS is ((2.25 + 0.324) / 16) × 1000 = 161.

V-MIL scores near zero because no military supply chain, defence contract, or weapons-relevant supply has been identified; the small non-zero value reflects unresolved evidence gaps (Keter Barkan historical operations; demerger legacy). V-DIG scores modestly, driven by the unconfirmed Check Point indicator and the structural Azure/Project Nimbus transitive link, both held at the Customer Cap level. V-POL scores above V-DIG because the company itself is the direct operator of its own communications policy — giving Proximity a high value (9.00) — but low Magnitude (2.50) reflects the absence of any positive political act or financial flow. V-ECON is highest because the Keter and Palram supply relationships are confirmed, multi-year, and directly contracted, with Proximity reflecting direct commercial contracts with UK subsidiaries of Israeli parent companies.

Confidence, Limits, and Open Questions

The BRS of 161 (Tier E) is robust to the principal identified uncertainties — no plausible resolution of outstanding gaps would move the score across a tier boundary.

High-confidence findings:

• No military supply chain, no defence contracts, no IDF or IMOD procurement relationship
• Keter Group and Palram Industries are confirmed, active, co-marketed supply partners
• Wickes operates exclusively in the UK with no physical presence in Israel or OPT
• No lobbying, no pro-Israel advocacy, no donations to Israeli-linked organisations

Moderate-confidence findings:

• Check Point firewall deployment (single-source, unconfirmed; if confirmed, V-DIG score rises modestly but remains within Tier E)
• Palram Canopia supply routed via UK subsidiary (structurally inferred; Companies House confirmation pending)
• Caesarstone listed as Wickes worktop option; direct vs distributor supply route unconfirmed

Open questions requiring further investigation:

• Current status of Keter Barkan Industrial Park operations (post-2020): Does any Wickes-sold Keter product originate from occupied West Bank manufacturing?
• Solar Fast hardware supply chain: Does Solar Fast use SolarEdge (Israeli-HQ) inverters? If confirmed, this adds a V-ECON relationship.
• Check Point deployment scope: Is the IT environment indicator corroborated by any second source?
• AppsFlyer or equivalent Israeli-origin mobile analytics SDK in Wickes mobile applications: Requires technical SDK audit.
• Aggregate Wickes procurement spend on Keter and Palram: If materially larger than the narrow product category implies, M for V-ECON would increase; BRS would remain Tier E.
• DXC Technology IT contract: Is DXC the confirmed awardee of the Find a Tender notice? If confirmed, What is the current status of DXC’s historical Israeli Basel System relationship?
• Full-text PDF search of 2023 and 2024 Annual Reports: Confirm total absence of “Gaza,” “Palestine,” “Israel” — human verification required.
• Wickes Responsible Sourcing Policy full-document review: Confirm whether any CAHRA or occupied-territory provision exists beyond the reviewed sections.

Recommended Actions

For researchers and civil society auditors:

Prioritise resolution of the Keter Barkan status gap. This is the most material outstanding question for both V-MIL and V-ECON. A live search of the current Who Profits Keter entry, supplemented by Keter’s current corporate disclosures and UK import records, would either close this gap or materially change the supply chain characterisation. If Barkan operations are ongoing and Wickes-sold Keter goods originate there, the ethical and policy framing of the V-ECON relationship changes substantially — though the BRS arithmetic would remain within Tier E absent additional evidence on other dimensions.

Commission a technical SDK audit of Wickes’ mobile applications (TradePro app and consumer-facing app). Israeli-origin mobile analytics platforms are not disclosed in corporate filings. This is a proportionate and achievable investigative step given the moderate V-DIG score and the identified AppsFlyer evidence gap.

Verify the Check Point IT environment claim against a second technographic source (e.g., BuiltWith, job listing analysis, or a second consultant portfolio). This is the only Israeli-origin digital relationship with any evidential basis; confirmation or disconfirmation would either strengthen or eliminate the V-DIG signal.

For institutional investors and ESG analysts:

The V-ECON score of 2.25 (dominant domain) reflects a real and confirmed procurement relationship with Israeli-headquartered manufacturers. This does not constitute a basis for divestment under current evidence but warrants an engagement letter to Wickes IR requesting: (a) disclosure of the country-of-origin status of Keter goods supplied to UK customers; (b) confirmation of whether the Responsible Sourcing Policy addresses CAHRA and occupied-territory supply risk; and (c) disclosure of whether SEDEX audits extend to Palram and Keter manufacturing facilities in Israel.

The Ukraine/Gaza asymmetry in annual reporting (V-POL, I = 3.00) is a documented and material policy gap. Investors with ESG mandates sensitive to conflict-affected supply chains should note that Wickes has no stated policy on goods from occupied or contested territories, in contrast to best-practice CAHRA standards. An engagement asking Wickes to align its responsible sourcing framework with CAHRA guidance would be proportionate to the confirmed evidence base.

The Solar Fast/SolarEdge claim should be verified before it is incorporated into any public-facing assessment. The current evidence base — informal Reddit posts — does not meet the evidentiary threshold for inclusion in investor communications.

For Wickes Group plc (governance recommendation):

The Responsible Sourcing Policy should be reviewed to determine whether it adequately addresses supply chain risk in conflict-affected and high-risk areas, including occupied territories, consistent with OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The current policy’s absence of specific CAHRA risk categories represents a structural gap common across the UK home improvement sector but inconsistent with emerging regulatory expectations under the UK’s corporate sustainability reporting trajectory.

End Notes