A Winnipeg investment firm with ownership stakes in Canadian manufacturing and airlines has bought a Saskatchewan company that makes heating and drying systems for grain growers and other sectors.
Exchange Income Corp. (EIC) announced Oct. 5 it has bought DryAir Manufacturing of St. Brieux for about $60 million in cash and EIC stock.
DryAir, in business since 1994, produces hydronic central heating and drying systems — that is, systems that use circulating fluids for heating or cooling — for applications such as construction site heating, ground thawing and concrete curing, among others.
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The company’s grain drying system uses a hydronic central heating unit to distribute heated fluid to sets of portable coils, which heat the intake air to be fed into grain bins via aeration fans. DryAir systems have been similarly used in commercial processing, such as drying dehydrated alfalfa pellets.
“DryAir checks all the boxes that we look for in acquisitions,” EIC CEO Mike Pyle said in a release. “They have a strong management team, company culture, industry reputation and sustainable growing cash flows.”
“We are consistently recognized for the quality of our products and that can only be accomplished with the help of each and every one of our employees in St. Brieux,” said DryAir founder Claude Bourgault, whose brothers Gerry and Joe are the presidents of St. Brieux-based ag equipment makers Bourgault Industries and Bourgault Tillage Tools, respectively.
“When we decided to sell, we foremost wanted a partner that held the same values as ourselves and our community.”
Bourgault and DryAir CEO and co-owner Myrlen Kleiboer will remain in their management roles with the company. “We know EIC will continue to support our employees and St. Brieux which was an important objective in defining our legacy,” Kleiboer said in the same release.
DryAir, Kleiboer said, “will continue to pursue new product development and creating new technologies for our ultimate customers.”
EIC’s other holdings include Canadian regional airline operators such as CalmAir, Perimeter Aviation, CarsonAir and the PAL Group, and several industrial parts and equipment manufacturers such as LV Control Manufacturing, a Winnipeg firm that makes control and automation systems for agricultural material processing and handling.
EIC’s acquisition of DryAir takes the form of $45 million in cash from its credit facility and $15 million in EIC shares, the company said. — Glacier FarmMedia Network
