The U.S. owner of food, feed and road salt processor Sifto Canada has wrapped up a $56 million deal to buy a Saskatchewan processor of sulfate of potash (SOP).
Kansas City-based Compass Minerals said Monday it’s completed its all-cash purchase of Big Quill Resources, which operates at Big Quill Lake near Wynyard, Sask., about 140 km northwest of Yorkton on the Yellowhead Highway.
Big Quill makes “high-purity” SOP for nutrients used by crop and turf growers, as well as for non-agricultural specialty applications.
The company’s Wynyard site, which can process up to 40,000 short tons per year, produces much of its SOP by extracting naturally-occurring sulfate from the brine of Big Quill Lake and combining it with potassium chloride.
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Big Quill sources its potassium chloride through a “very long-term, advantaged supply agreement,” Compass said in its release.
Angelo Brisimitzakis, Compass’ CEO, described the Wynyard company as “an innovative, entrepreneurial business with unique production capabilities, technical expertise and non-seasonal applications that will both broaden and strengthen Compass Minerals’ specialty fertilizer segment.”
“Plan to expand”
Compass, he added, expects the acquisition to be “immediately accretive. In addition, we plan to expand Big Quill’s production and sales of high-value specialty products over time.”
Compass is already a producer of “organic-approved” SOP, which it markets to crop, fruit, vegetable and tree nut growers in the Americas and Pacific Rim.
Another Compass subsidiary and SOP processor, Utah-based Great Salt Lake Minerals Corp., announced last month it plans to raise its prices of all its SOP standard and granulated fertilizer products by $25 per short ton on orders placed on or after Dec. 13, or as contracts allow.
Big Quill’s 2010 revenues, meanwhile, are expected to be about $23 million with EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of about $7 million, Compass said Monday.
Compass’ Canadian holdings already include Mississauga-based Sifto Canada and its rock salt mine and mechanical evaporation plant at Goderich, Ont., evaporation plants at Unity, Sask. and Amherst, N.S., and six distribution centres in southern Ontario, B.C., Quebec and Newfoundland.
Sifto’s products include Canadian Stockman livestock salt and mineral blocks, Sifto brand table, baking and canning salts, fishery salts, pool salts and DustGard dust control products for unpaved roads. The company is also Canada’s biggest producer of road and sidewalk de-icing products.
