Saskatchewan’s Brandt Group of Companies is celebrating another addition.
As reported in this issue, the equipment company recently announced its acquisition of Wairarapa Machinery Services Ltd., its 18th location in New Zealand.
In a press release dated Aug. 31, CEO Shaun Semple says the deal is “uniting the entire North Island under one dealer brand” for agriculture, construction and forestry equipment.
The release also listed similar business moves by the company over the past two years, including the centralization of distribution rights for John Deere equipment in the region.
Read Also
Calling all farmers: What do you want us to ask at the Ag in Motion farm show?
Ag in Motion is back July 15-17, 2025; we want to know the production questions you need our reporters to ask
The company touts the move for the benefits it will bring to its New Zealand customers – robust support, parts and technician availability.
It’s true. More locations mean more parts desks, more staff and more chance of nearby technical help. And it’s great to see this homegrown Canadian company find success.
The message, however, is an example of a familiar refrain in countless mergers and company sales: we’re getting bigger; we can serve you better now.
In terms of what’s best for the customer, that’s not always true.
Competition is supposed to be the secret sauce that makes the market go round. As taught in introductory economics, it’s supposed to be the mitigating force to keep capitalism – where each company is purposefully free, in general, to act in its own self-interest – from becoming exploitive.
A company puts prices too high? The customer is able to go to a competitor that charges less.
Centralization of ownership does not necessarily mean a company is about to raise prices, but it does mean the loss of a central mechanism meant to keep that from happening.
Earlier this summer, we published an editorial by University of Waterloo doctoral student Garros Gong, which expressed serious reservations about market centralization in Canada.
That article, written amid a new spate of attention to grocery centralization and the bread price-fixing scandal, noted that over 75 per cent of food sales in the nation comes from five companies – Loblaws, Walmart, Costco, Metro and Empire, the owner of Sobeys.
Gong then listed other industries.
“While Sobeys, Loblaws, Metro, Costco and Walmart dominate over 60 per cent of the grocery sector, Bell, Rogers and Telus command about 89 per cent of the wireless telecommunications market,” he wrote, later noting the impact on the telecommunications landscape when Rogers and Shaw merged (a deal completed in early April).
In the latter case, the debate was the same: a potentially faster 5G network rollout facilitated by the merger on one side, the market pitfalls of an oligopoly on the other.
Banks were another target, because six banks take up most of Canada’s market share, Gong noted.
The same opinion piece noted the gaps, or, as some would say, the toothless nature of the Competition Bureau. The institution has only challenged 18 mergers since 1986, Gong wrote, “and has never won a challenge on final judgment.”
Back in the agriculture space, there’s the in-process merger between Bunge and Viterra, which would create a grain trade behemoth worth US$34 billion, Reuters reported in June.
The reaction to that news from farmers was mostly unsurprised resignation. It was, after all, the second attempt at that merger.
The resignation came from awareness that centralized ownership rarely does the producer any favours at the elevator.
“Viterra and G3 are dominant in wheat, while Bunge is dominant in canola, soy and corn. Combining them gives one company massive market power over the largest crops grown in and exported by Canada,” wrote Cathy Holtslander, the National Farmers Union’s director of research and policy, in a July opinion piece.
While it’s true that large companies have more resources, whether for innovation and research or additional services, it’s hard not to look at the gradual slide in competition without some degree of cynicism.
The current economic system seems determined to create giants. The problem with giants, of course, is that’s it’s easy to get stepped on.
