By Scott Wright
WEIR Group, the mining-focused engineering giant, has returned to the acquisition trail with a deal to buy Canadian firm Carriere Industrial Supply.
Ontario-based CIS, which was founded in 1964 and employs more than 135 people, was described by Glasgow’s Weir as a premier manufacturer and distributor of highly engineered wear parts and a provider of after-market services to the Canadian mining industry.
The deal, which has an enterprise value of £20 million, builds on the long-standing relationship CIS has with ESCO, the Oregon-based tool supplier to the surface mining and construction sectors acquired by Weir in 2019. Weir said CIS has been ESCO’s distributor in Eastern Canada for many years. It noted that the company would become part of Weir’s ESCO division.
Andrew Neilson, president of the ESCO division, said: “The acquisition of CIS aligns with our strategy of providing direct sales and service to our mining customers and builds on our longstanding partnership, while also enhancing our capabilities in underground hard rock mining applications.”
The acquisition comes shortly after Weir announced plans to acquire Canadian mining business Motion Metrics of Vancouver in a deal that could be worth up to £148m. The Canadian firm, which Weir also plans to fold into its ESCO division, is said to be a leading developer of artificial intelligence and 3D rugged machine vision technology that is used to increase safety, efficiency and sustainability of mining operations.
In March, Weir reported that it had suspended operations in Russia and Ukraine following the Russian assault on its neighbouring country. Chief executive Jon Stanton told The Herald that the company had moved its 30 employees in Ukraine to safety after the start of the invasion, and that it had halted its operations in both Ukraine and Russia. Weir supports the iron ore mining industries in Ukraine and Russia, where it directly employs 270 people, and is also involved in copper, gold and diamond mining in Siberia.
The company said there remains “significant uncertainty” over the future of its operations in Ukraine and Russia, while stating that both countries represent a relatively limited part of its overall business.
Weir made a pre-tax profit of £209m in 2021, up 18 per cent on the year prior.
Shares closed down 42.9p, or 2.7%, at 1,548.06p.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here