Price Industries seals deal Down Under

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This article was published 10/03/2021 (1727 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Price Industries has acquired a leading HVAC equipment manufacturer in Australia and New Zealand that will establish another geographic foothold for the company and increase export shipments from its Winnipeg operations.

Its acquisition of Holyoake Air Management Solutions is a combination of two very similar companies right down to the fact they both started as licenced manufacturers for the same competitor and transitioned to original equipment manufacturers around the same time.

But with about 3,500 employees including more than 1,100 in Winnipeg, Price is significantly larger than Holyoake with about 230 employees.

Price has bought other companies in the past but it has mostly grown organically over the years to become one of the dominant HVAC players in the commercial and industrial development business in North America

Gillian Groening, the Price vice-president in charge of the deal, said, “This is definitely one of the most significant deals we have done.”

It’s perhaps even more significant in that it was able to be closed during the pandemic when both sides were not able to travel.

Price was approached by Holyoake 18 months ago and a team of executives from Winnipeg were in Australia in January 2020 just before the whole world closed to international travel.

“We’re proud we were able to close the transaction during COVID,” said Groening on a Microsoft Teams call from her basement office. “The environment where you see me sitting in is where the deal happened.”

Both Price and Holyoake are family owned (and named) companies and no financial details of the deal have been disclosed.

The plan is for Holyoake to leverage Price’s more extensive product line into greater market share in Australia and New Zealand.

Sandra Rossi, the editor of Climate Control News, a leading Australian HVAC trade publication, said, “Holyoake is a well- established brand here with quality products. I think the backing of Price can only be positive and it will mean a larger product portfolio for established customers and potential customers.”

Groening said the plan is to concentrate on Holyoake’s current market in the Australasia region. She said Price has other “irons in the fire” when it comes to Southeast Asia.

Price hopes to help Holyoake expand in the critical environments like health-care facilities. It is a market that Price excels in and that Holyoake is not currently active in.

Among other things, the pandemic has created greater awareness and urgency around indoor air quality and creating safe space for employees to return to work.

While Australia and New Zealand controlled the spread of COVID-19 much better than many other parts of the world, there is heightened awareness around managing indoor air quality from building developers around the world.

Greg Loeppky, Price’s vice-president of marketing, said that while air quality issues has always been at the forefront for critical environment spaces, he said, “Commercial HVAC was a necessary evil. Now it is at the front of the design table.”

Many of health care and other critical environments products lines are built at its Winnipeg facilities. Price has seven production facilities in Canada and six in the U.S. but it is the Winnipeg shop that will likely experience an export bump because of this deal.

Rossi said Holyoake will give Price an opportunity to get an immediate presence in Australia and New Zealand and the wider Asia Pacific market as well.

Groening, who was previously Price’s vice-president of supply chain management, said “It’s not that much of a challenge to get products out of Winnipeg onto a ship.”

Previously Price’s exposure to that market was a modest amount of sales to distributors.

“This allows us to have a much more significant position rather than just selling to third party reps who then sell our product along with a number of other lines,” she said. “This is now us in the market.”

The Holyoake family will retain a minority interest in the company, which is especially important for Price in that its executives are still not able to travel there.

The fundamental goal for the deal is to allow Holyoake to achieve more substantial growth.

In a prepared statement, Gerry Price, the company chairman and CEO said, “Our job, as partners with Holyoake, is to enable Holyoake’s success. We trust the leaders there like we trust our own leaders. Our goal is to be a forever company, and the only way to be a forever company, is to grow.”

 

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca