The engineering firm Norda Stelo, formerly known as Groupe Roche, has been pursuing a new cycle of expansion since 2019 which has led the company to make four acquisitions over the past three years. Its president, Alex Brisson, is not about to put an end to this consolidating sequence since he plans to carry out new transactions in the coming months.
If Norda Stelo has been in existence for more than 60 years, it was in 2019 that the company completed its transformation after the troubled years post-Charbonneau commission and the criminal charges that were brought against the firm and some of its managers, particularly for tax fraud.
“It was in 2019 that we finished settling with the former shareholders of the firm and that we settled the lawsuits against us. We finished paying the fines from the Competition Bureau and the Elections Bureau last year. We rebuilt ourselves and were able to start on new bases in niche markets,” explains Alex Brisson.
The Roche Group employed 1,800 people and had revenues of 180 million in 2010, a year before the start of the Charbonneau commission. In 2016, the renamed Norda Stelo company had only 600 employees and revenues of 60 million.
“We abandoned all the municipal engineering and building activities which had hurt us very much to concentrate on the manufacturing, mining, energy and maritime and rail transport sectors. For four and a half years, we were on the special accounts of our banking institution.
“It was in 2019 that we stabilized our operations with very clear governance rules, with a growth plan focused on the sustainability and resilience of companies’ infrastructure assets. For four years, we have recorded profitability at double decimal places,” specifies the CEO.
Over the years, Norda Stelo has specialized in the maintenance, updating and optimization of equipment for major industrial players, notably Rio Tinto for whom it carries out the maintenance of all its aluminum smelters in Saguenay and its operations. iron on the North Shore.
“Our association is such that we are also responsible for Rio Tinto’s assets in New Caledonia, Madagascar and Salt Lake City in the largest copper mine in the world,” adds Alex Brisson.
Norda Stelo also regularly examines and repairs large infrastructures such as the Victoria Bridge or the Quebec Bridge. It also takes care of all port ore transshipment activities at the port of Sept-Îles.
“We are not at the forefront of projects, we manage equipment and infrastructure assets. We participate in their updating and transformation over time,” specifies the CEO.
Growth by acquisition
This specialization of the firm in the sustainability of assets pushed it to acquire in 2021 a young artificial intelligence startup from Quebec which has 34 programmers and which has designed an AI platform capable of predicting the degradation of assets. infrastructure assets.
“When you can give a second life to a building or a factory chimney because you intervened in time, you have an environmental impact. Our Stelar AI platform can perform a dynamic health check of manufacturing assets. We are part of the solutions to achieve the energy transition,” says Alex Brisson.
Last June, Norda Stelo acquired the firm Planifika from Quebec, specializing in asset management, before announcing in December the acquisition of CWA from Vancouver, a firm specializing in carrying out large-scale projects. and projects on greenfield sites. The company brings together around a hundred engineers.
“We have become a firm capable of serving a client from the mine to the port, in all stages of production. With the acquisition of CWA in Vancouver, we have expanded our presence to both oceans,” notes the CEO.
Finally, a month ago, the engineering group announced the acquisition of the Val-d’Or firm InnovExplo, which has 45 employees specializing in the geology of critical metals.
The company is active upstream of the mining industry since it notably carries out reports confirming the content and exploitation potential of mineral deposits and environmental impacts.
“We are going to be even more involved in the energy transition by participating in the identification and exploitation of deposits of critical minerals such as lithium, graphite or scandium,” observes Alex Brisson.
After its slump in the early 2010s, Norda Stelo took control of its destiny by purifying its activities and strengthening its governance rules. Revenues which fell to 60 million in 2016 are now more than 155 million.
The company now has more than 900 employees spread across numerous cities in Quebec, Toronto, Vancouver, New Caledonia, Madagascar, South Africa and the United States.
Norda Stelo wants to pursue its growth plan and continue to operate in niche markets by making other acquisitions in Canada, the United States and Europe, assures its CEO.
“The Caisse de dépôt participated in the financing of our last two acquisitions through loans, but it is not excluded that the Caisse one day becomes a shareholder of Norda Stelo. We’ll see,” assesses Alex Brisson.
reference: www.lapresse.ca