After the rain, the good weather, says the proverb. This can be confirmed by Véronique Tougas, CEO of Cambli, the largest manufacturer of armored trucks for the transport of valuables in North America. After having experienced a disastrous 2021 due to multiple breaks in the supply chain, the Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu company has resumed its wanderings this year and is now banking on diversification.
This is not the first crisis that the entrepreneur has gone through, who became CEO of the family business at 33, in 2010, when her father, who had founded Cambli in 1992, judged that he had had his day. and that the torch had to be passed.
“We were going through a period of crazy growth, more than 100% compared to the previous year. We had just built a second factory to manufacture our parts.
“In 2012, the market collapsed. I had to lay off half of our 200 employees and sell equipment from our second parts plant. We developed a new, much more technological type of vehicle and orders resumed in 2013. But it was a very tense period,” says Véronique Tougas.
The CEO of Cambli has just relived another difficult episode in 2021 when she was unable to have the chassis on which her armored trucks are built delivered.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Véronique Tougas, CEO of Cambli
“While we manufacture 300 to 400 trucks a year, we fell to 50 last year. We developed a new platform with Ford Transit vehicle chassis, but it was impossible to get it delivered. Same thing with the Peterbilt truck chassis on which we manufacture our biggest armored vehicles, we were not able to get supplies, ”says Véronique Tougas.
A crisis to overcome
To cross the desert, Cambli won contracts to manufacture gel dispensers during the pandemic in 2020-2021, while continuing to build paramilitary armored trucks and side-loading aluminum trailers used to distribute beer, but again we had to lay off people.
Because in addition to building armored trucks for the transport of valuables for large companies such as Garda and Brinks, Cambli has been assembling value-added tactical vehicles and aluminum trailers since 2010 since it acquired the company in 2013 Hesse, from Granby, and repatriated its production to Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu.
“Since September, we have resumed the manufacture of armored vehicles. We had 300 Ford Transit chassis delivered and we will end the year with a production of 150 trucks, while we plan to manufacture 300 next year,” says Véronique Tougas.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Cambli factory in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu
Cambli sells 70% of its production of value transport trucks on the American market. Transport trucks generate 70% of its annual revenue, aluminum trailers 20% and tactical vehicles 10%. Cambli exports these specialized trucks to Europe, a buoyant market, according to the CEO.
The company plans to soon start partnerships with major contractors in the military industry, including Rheinmetall Canada (formerly Oerlikon), a major manufacturer of on-board equipment in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu.
“We mainly talk about trailers and systems integration, we are experts in that and we have the agility they are looking for”, underlines the CEO of Cambli.
CTEQ Ambassador
For a few years now, Véronique Tougas has been an ambassador for the Center de transfert d’entreprise du Québec (CTEQ) for the manufacturing sector. She wants to share her experience and promote the best possible transition between the transferor of a business and its successor.
“It hasn’t been easy. In 2010, at 33, I was too young to become CEO. I was vice-president of finance, we were growing and my father said to me: “You are the one who will manage this growth.” When we hit the crisis in 2012, it was a very difficult time. »
“I had to make decisions that my father didn’t like, like stopping manufacturing parts in our second factory, it was his project and he wanted to regain control, it was tense. Fortunately, things have settled down, but the problem is that he had transferred the controlling shares to me, when I had not yet bought the company, ”explains Véronique Tougas.
This is why the CEO of Cambli wants to make owners-sellers and buyers aware of how to properly plan the transfer of ownership of a company. Its longevity and good family relations are at stake.
It was not until 2016 that Véronique Tougas undertook the takeover of the company, even though she had been the controlling shareholder since 2010.
“I had a longtime business partner, Martin Cousineau, who owned 15% of the shares and is still with me, but I did not have beneficial ownership. In 2012, my father saw his pension fund disappear, I understand that he was worried, ”explains the CEO.
Véronique Tougas specifies that her father granted her extremely favorable conditions of sale, i.e. a reimbursement over 12 years, without interest.
“Even last year, during the crisis, he did not ask me for a refund. He was really good to me, agrees the CEO of Cambli. He really wants the business to work. We get on very well. »
The ultimate message that Véronique Tougas delivers to entrepreneurs is that inheritance and shareholding should not be mixed up in order to preserve the business and the family.
Herself a mother of three children, Véronique Tougas is already preparing her successor, even if her eldest daughter is only 16 years old. It resolutely expects the transfer to take place in a harmonious and profitable manner for the company.