Vancouver, British Columbia — WesternOne Equity Income Fund recently announced an agreement to acquire Deerfoot Equipment Rentals, a general rental company located in Calgary and Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. The Vancouver, B.C.-based private equity group is paying about CD $13 million for Deerfoot, a leading player in the Southern Alberta equipment rental industry.
Deerfoot Rentals is a Volvo Rents franchisee in its current markets and has the option to open additional Volvo Rents franchise locations in Saskatoon and Regina, Saskatchewan.
WesternOne Equity will finance the acquisition with a combination of existing cash, debt financing under an existing credit facility and the issuance of 125,000 exchangeable units convertible to public units of Western-One Equity on a one-for-one basis.
“This acquisition provides an additional platform rental business, an experienced in-place management team within the Southern Alberta market, and an excellent fit to our existing rental platform business in British Columbia,” said WesternOne CEO Darren Latoski. “We will continue to look to consolidate in this and other industries in the future.”
WesternOne acquired C&N Rentals in Vancouver Island earlier this year, and Old Country Rentals, also on the island, in June 2007. The private equity group last month posted revenues of CD $22.5 million (U.S. $23 million) for 2007, compared to $6.6 million for its 201 days of operation in 2006.
WesternOne Equity was established to seek out and acquire predominantly privately owned businesses located primarily in the western Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan.