Buhler Industries owner to take Winnipeg-headquartered company private
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/02/2025 (560 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Never mind a 52-week high, how about an 11-year high?
That was the height Buhler Industries Inc. shares hit in trading Wednesday when its stock price more than doubled on news Turkish owner ASKO Holding was taking the Winnipeg-headquartered company private.
ASKO already owns 97 per cent of Buhler shares, acquiring them in December 2023 from the former controlling shareholder, Russia-based Combine Factory Rostselmash Ltd.
Buhler shares closed Wednesday in Toronto at $7.15, up from their last trade Monday at $3.40.
Buhler’s board retained PricewaterhouseCoopers to do a financial fairness study, which came up with the price of $7.30 it will pay for the 815,414 shares ASKO does not currently own.
Chief financial officer Willy Janzen said the going-private process is not expected to change anything in the company’s day-to-day operations.
Buhler employs about 700 people at its Versatile tractor manufacturing operation on Clarence Avenue and in Morden at the company’s Farm King brand manufacturing facility. The company also has a couple of small manufacturing operations in Minnesota, as well as a parts distribution centre in California.
In addition to the Buhler operations, ASKO, a family-owned business, employs about 1,800 people in Turkey, where it operates companies in the construction and agricultural equipment manufacturing sectors. It also owns a technology company and another that makes industrial generators. And it distributes the German CLAAS brand of agricultural equipment in Turkey.
Janzen said there no plans to change the name of Versatile or Farm King brands in North America.
Last summer, about 40 Versatile dealers from Canada and the U.S. visited ASKO’s operations in Turkey.
“It was a way to introduce some of the dealers to the new ownership that was effective at the end of 2023. It was a way to give them a feel for who the new owner is … to give the dealers a little more appreciation for what there was behind the scenes,” Janzen said.
He said many of those minority shareholders may very well be company employees or retired employees who participated in a share distribution program that ended in 2007.
martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca