Agricultural equipment firm sells for $1.2B

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This article was published 14/12/2017 (2317 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One of Winnipeg’s biggest, most secretive companies, MacDon Industries Ltd., has been sold to an Ontario company for $1.2 billion.

News of the sale broke late Thursday afternoon, as Guelph, Ont.-based Linamar Corp. announced it had reached an agreement to purchase the agriculture equipment-maker from the MacDonald family of Winnipeg.

MacDon sells specialized agricultural harvesting equipment in more than 40 countries on six continents. Its global network includes about 1,400 dealers and distributors, with offices in the U.S., Australia, Russia, Brazil and Germany.

The company has a 900,000- square-foot manufacturing complex on 86 acres of land in the Murray Industrial Park, employing more than 1,400 people. Every MacDon machine is designed and manufactured in Winnipeg.

The company — known for being reclusive when it comes to media coverage — was unable to provide comment on the sale when contacted Thursday evening.

It has long-standing business relationships with prominent agricultural equipment companies such as John Deere, New Holland and AgCo — making private-label products for them all.

MacDon got its start in 1949 as Killbery Industries Ltd., making agricultural equipment such as sprayers, seeders and cultivators.

Two years, later the company produced one of the first self-propelled windrowers — their first in a long line of harvesting innovations.

The MacDonald family purchased the business in 1971 — later changing its name to MacDon Industries Ltd. — and shifted the focus to harvesting equipment. Despite the changes, the company has retained its deep roots in Manitoba.

The company is well known throughout the agricultural industry.

In a past interview with the Free Press, John Schmieser, CEO of Calgary-based Canada West Equipment Dealers Association, described MacDon as “a great Manitoba success story.”

“The company is first class top to bottom… There’s an awful lot of very good business sense and lots of integrity in the organization. The contribution they make to the Manitoba economy is significant,” he said.

In 2013, unconfirmed reports indicated the company was up for sale. While the reason it was on the block remained unclear, some pointed to the difficulty of planning a third-generation succession for such a large business.

At the time of the sale, three MacDonald brothers — Allan, Gary and Scott — were managing the company.

Linamar said the purchase of MacDon will complement its agricultural business in Hungary, and help them serve more markets globally.

The sale should diversify the company’s operations, as Linamar predominantly focuses on making precision metallic parts for a range of sectors, including automobiles. The company had sales of $6 billion in 2016, operating 59 manufacturing facilities globally and employing around 24,500 people.

Company CEO Linda Hasenfratz said the agricultural sector is in the early stages of a cyclical recovery and is expected to show strong growth, which played a factor in the purchase.

— with files from Martin Cash and The Canadian Press

ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca