REM, roof of the Olympic Stadium, La Fontaine tunnel, Ville-Marie tunnel: Pomerleau is carrying out work (alone or in consortium) on 9 of the 10 largest public projects underway in Greater Montreal. Contracts won in the absence of other bidders in half of the cases, like a few weeks ago for the extension of the blue line.
In five years, Pomerleau’s turnover has more than tripled, going from 1.5 billion to more than 5 billion, half of which is in Quebec.
Since August 2023, Philippe Adam has been the captain of this ship launched at full speed. However, the CEO of Pomerleau had never granted an interview before sitting down with The Pressat the end of September.
The growth of the company “makes us super proud,” he admits, in his office in Square Victoria, on the border of downtown and Old Montreal. “The company started from Saint-Georges, in Beauce, 60 years ago. Then, we are in the top 3 at the Canadian level, even the second largest in Canada, according to our calculations. »
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The omnipresence of Pomerleau in major public projects is not the result of chance.
“Large projects,” he says, “we have equipped ourselves to do more. We could see it being promising. We know that there is a big plan for federal and provincial infrastructures (we are talking about Quebec, but in the other provinces too) and we saw this as promising for both the repair of existing infrastructures and new ones like the REM, for example. , or the blue line. »
“The big piece of the pie”
Gabriel Jobidon is a professor at the École de Technologie Supérieure and an informed observer of public construction contracts.
“Pomerleau is picking up the big part of the pie at the moment,” he confirms to The Press. “They have a gigantic turnover, they have won several recent major projects. » The academic refuses to speak of a “monopoly”, but rather evokes a cyclical “control” of the company on this market.
Among the elements of this situation: post-COVID-19 public investments and the lack of interest of certain major North American players for Quebec.
“Pomerleau played his cards well,” he continues. The company has notably equipped itself with a technical office – an in-house engineering firm – and a financing subsidiary in order to be ready to seize opportunities.
Philippe Adam also puts these two elements forward when asked to explain the “Pomerleau recipe”.
“Our competitors, both in Quebec and in Canada, do not have technical offices of this scale,” he explains, specifying that 150 employees work there. This is something we see more in Europe. »
Another aspect of the Pomerleau recipe also lies in the immense network of subcontractors that the company can mobilize – and at what price.
An experienced contractor active in industry associations describes Pomerleau as “very aggressive with contractors and subcontractors,” often negotiating their bills down. He declined to be publicly identified for fear of facing professional backlash.
“The rest of us protect our interests, but Pomerleau is always a fair company, otherwise we would not have been in business for 60 years,” replied Philippe Adam. I like to use the word “fair” better than “hard”. »
Pomerleau’s order book is so full that the situation even prevents it from taking on certain projects on which it has nevertheless invested millions in preparation. This is the case of the call for tenders for the Quebec tramway last year, for which the company did not obtain the financial guarantees necessary to submit a bid, according to information from The Press.
“When you get towards the end of the process and you don’t file it, it’s frustrating for everyone,” argues Mr. Adam, without wanting to comment on this particular case. “Is Pomerleau thinking too big financially? No. Do we have strong backs, can we bidder on lots of projects again? Yes. Besides, we look at the tramway with interest. When he returns to a new form, Pomerleau is sure to be interested. »
“We always want to be competitive”
In Quebec, deputies are currently discussing a bill aimed in particular at reforming the way in which the State awards its major contracts, in order to make them more attractive to the industry. The government notes that several companies have lost interest in public contracts. The Minister of Infrastructure, Jonatan Julien, refused our interview request for this file.
“I salute Pomerleau, it’s a Quebec company,” commented his colleague Geneviève Guilbault, on the sidelines of an interview given to The Press last May. “But it is certain that sometimes the risk-taking is so high that there are certain players who can find themselves disqualified because they do not have the backbone strong enough to take so many risks. »
And the simple presence of Pomerleau on a starting line causes many participants to abandon the race, according to Gabriel Jobidon.
“When other entrepreneurs know that Pomerleau is interested, they are not particularly interested. Because it’s expensive to participate in a process, he explains. It can be quite expensive to spend 3, 4, 5 million to develop a proposal and have nothing at the end of the day. »
Result: less competition in an already narrow market and – logically – higher costs for the public treasury.
At Pomerleau, however, we believe that competition is still very present in the world of large infrastructure projects.
“We always want to be competitive,” assures the big boss of the company.
“We must not forget that there are a lot of players from Ontario, Alberta, Spain, France, Italy, Korea, who come to play here,” continues- he. Calls for tenders, “it’s quite airtight, so we don’t necessarily know who is against us. We have no idea of their interest in the project. We have no idea how aggressive they are on the project. »