A major dealer of John Deere equipment in Manitoba is extending its catchment in the province’s west to include a long-established Deere shop.
Winnipeg-based Enns Bros. announced Friday it has a deal in place to buy the assets of S.H. Dayton Ltd., a Deere equipment dealership at Shoal Lake, about 100 km northwest of Brandon. The deal was expected to close Wednesday.
Founded at Newdale in 1961, S.H. Dayton opened its current Shoal Lake site in 1979 and has been owned since 1994 by Keith Martin, Peter Baydak and Calvin Harrison, who jointly purchased it from Jim Dayton.
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Dayton “has earned a reputation for excellent customer service, providing Shoal Lake area farmers with a high level of product support, a depth of knowledge and best-in-class business practices,” Enns Bros. said in a release.
Martin, Baydak and Harrison have decided “not to continue in their current roles,” Enns Bros. said. Long-time Dayton staffers Dale Martin and Craig Geekie will manage the Shoal Lake operation.
“We know that Dale and Craig are the right stewards for the dealership in this community and that they will continue to build on the legacy of value and support that we have been providing for over 62 years,” departing general manager Keith Martin said in the same release.
“The timing is right for us to take this next step and we are all excited for what this will mean for our customers now and in the future.”
Apart from the Deere product line, the Dayton shop today also sells Stihl, MaxQuip, Demco, Elmer’s, HLA and Horst Wagons equipment, plus AGI’s Westfield, Rem and Batco brands.
Enns Bros., which started as an Allis-Chalmers and New Holland dealership at Sanford in 1953, became that area’s John Deere dealer in 1956 and moved in 1961 to nearby Oak Bluff.
Along with the Oak Bluff site, Enns Bros. today operates eight others in Manitoba at Arborg, Brandon, Melita, Morris, Neepawa, Portage la Prairie, Steinbach and Winnipeg, plus a site at Kenora, Ont.
“By combining the exceptional customer experience that the Shoal Lake team is known for, with our innovative precision agriculture strategies and technical resources, we believe we can create even more value for customers in the region,” Enns Bros. president Ray Bouchard said in Friday’s release.
