Russel Metals will dramatically expand its service center portfolio with the acquisition of seven service center companies from fellow Canadian company Samuel, Son & Co. Ltd. Five of the companies are located in Western Canada and another two in the United States.
The transaction was made for approximately $225 million.
Russel will acquire Samuel’s facilities in Winnipeg, Manitoba; Nisku and Calgary in Alberta; and Surrey and Langley in British Columbia. In the U.S., Russel will acquire Samuel’s carbon plate branches in Neville Island, Pa., and Buffalo, N.Y.
Samuel will retain its ownership of a facility in Delta, B.C., but begin an orderly shutdown of the business.
The seven service centers generated approximately $704 million during the previous year.
“Over the past several years, we’ve reviewed a significant number of potential acquisition opportunities and are excited to announce this transaction, as our respective businesses are very complementary from both geographic and product mix perspectives. We look forward to having the approximately 340 Samuel employees join the Russel family,” said John Reid, president and CEO of Russel Metals.
“In Western Canada, Samuel's five locations will be a strong fit with our current footprint, including providing new opportunities to benefit from Samuel's focus on nonferrous products and Russel's focus on value-added processing. In the U.S. Northeast, the two locations will provide an eastern extension of our existing operations in the U.S. Midwest. In addition, we believe there will be opportunities to achieve operating efficiencies by more effectively managing the combined footprint, including enhanced inventory management, procurement, location integration/rationalization and systems. These reorganization initiatives are expected to be implemented over a two-year period."
Samuel will continue to operate its network of service centers in Eastern Canada and others in the United States.
“Samuel has a longstanding reputation as one of North America’s leading metal distribution companies. We will continue to build on this legacy with a service center business that will now focus on growing customer relationship in Central and Eastern Canada and the U.S., while simultaneously accelerating our investment in additional growth opportunities across the business,” said Colin Osborne, president and CEO of Samuel. “We are proud of the strength of the operations we are selling to Russel, which we believe can be made even stronger as part of this newly combined business.”