Premier Tech, a Quebec-based company making peat moss-based soil products for the ag and horticulture markets, has bought one of Canada’s biggest lawn and garden input firms.
Halifax investment firm Clarke Inc. said Thursday it would sell its Sure-Gro division for $10.4 million cash and $3.1 million in eight-per-cent notes maturing in October 2012. Premier Tech announced itself as the buyer the same day.
“Through this transaction, the company strengthens the position of its horticulture and agriculture group on the home and garden market in Canada,” Premier Tech said in its release Thursday.
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Sure-Gro is billed as Canada’s “leading manufacturer and marketer” of consumer lawn and garden products, with a product portfolio that includes the CIL, CIL GolfGreen, Wilson, Nature Mix, Alaskan Ice Melter and Green Earth brands.
Under its new ownership. it’s to become Premier Tech’s 12th business unit, with the mandate to “deploy its brands and products in conjunction with Premier Tech’s on the Canadian consumer market.”
Those include “professional” and retail-level soil amendments sold under the Pro-Mix, Sogemix and Pro-Moss brands, as well as retail brands Premier, Biomax and Liteway.
Based at Riviere-du-Loup, Que., Premier Tech also runs an industrial equipment unit, which develops machinery for weighing, packaging, recycling and processing of food, feed, and agriculture products including peat. A third unit develops wastewater treatment applications for residential, industrial, commercial and municipal use.
Clarke’s president Rob Normandeau, in a separate release, described Sure-Gro as “a tremendous investment for Clarke that provided our team with the opportunity to be directly involved in the successful turnaround of a business with meaningful market position and scale.”
Clarke Inc. is a publicly traded firm investing in “undervalued businesses” in which it “participates actively where necessary to enhance performance and increase return.”
