Burnaby’s Skidmore Group has closed a deal to sell the auto-glass repair companies Speedy Auto Glass USA Inc. and Novus Inc., among other assets, to Montreal’s Fix Auto World for “tens of millions of dollars,” Skidmore Group chief commercial officer Rick Christiaanse told Business in Vancouver June 6.
The exact sale price was not disclosed, but Christiaanse said the companies combined have 2,000 locations worldwide.
The transaction closed May 31, and it leaves the Skidmore Group with a mountain of deployable capital that it can use when it goes on a corporate buying spree later this year.
Its executives’ aim is to be more diversified, Christiaanse said.
The company is probably best known for its ties with Burnaby-based Glentel, which now operates more than 1,200 mobile phone stores under brands such as Wirelesswave, Wave Sans Fil and Tbooth.
In 2015, when BCE Inc. bought all shares in what was the TSX-listed Glentel, the Skidmore Group sold its stake in Glentel for about $90 million.
BCE Inc. then sold a 50% stake of Glentel to Rogers Communications Inc. so the two telecom giants could co-run the retail venture.
Allan Skidmore, Skidmore Group’s CEO, co-founded Glentel with brother Thomas Skidmore in 1985. Thomas is not with the Skidmore Group and instead focuses on his own ventures, while Allan’s son, Garry Skidmore, is the Skidmore Group’s president.
The Skidmore Group historically focused on owning ventures in the auto-glass and telecom sectors but has since started to diversify.
It now primarily operates three ventures:
•the rights to the Novus Glass windshield repair business in B.C.;
•Apollo Sign & Millwork, which builds retail stores for clients who want to transform empty real estate space; and,
•the kitchen cabinet and counter manufacturing company Kitchen Art Design, which now has one manufacturing site and retail store in Cloverdale.
(Image: Rick Christiaanse is chief commercial officer at the Skidmore Group)
A second Kitchen Art Design store is slated to open in Coquitlam this fall.
Future acquisitions will diversify the company even more.
“We’re looking at retail, we’re looking at technology and we’re looking at franchising as the three industries we will focus on,” Christiaanse said.
“We have a roadmap to acquire at least two companies in the next six months.”
