A successful project by Bouty.
Posted at 9:00 a.m.
The office chair manufacturer has just resuscitated, under the name Modullis, the modular partition manufacturer Innovo, which declared bankruptcy last November.
The president of Bouty and ADI Art Design International (ADI), Éric Morin, who had been interested in the sector for a few years already, went about it twice to successfully acquire the small manufacturer from Boucherville.
I had been looking for growth opportunities for a few years, and diversification is always something I like, as long as there are possible synergies.
Éric Morin, President of Bouty and ADI Art Design International (ADI)
During 2021, he had heard of the difficulties of the young company founded in 2015, poorly capitalized and sewn in debt, to which teleworking from home was particularly painful.
Bouty and ADI, for their part, had escaped the crisis without too much damage with a transactional site intended for home workers.
A first approach, at the beginning of the fall, fizzled out when Éric Morin became aware of the company’s delicate financial situation. “It was too risky at that time,” he says. We couldn’t see how we could save her. »
He seized his chance when he learned of the bankruptcy of the company, of which he acquired the main assets in mid-December.
“We didn’t know much about this market when we bought the assets,” he says. We had done our homework a bit, but it was a bit of a leap into the void. At worst, we said to ourselves that we would resell them, these assets! »
He had barely concluded the transaction when the owner told him that he was giving him one month to vacate the premises. To something misfortune is good, given the rent of $100,000 a year.
The manufacture of extrusions and opaque or glazed panels was largely subcontracted. Innovo was dedicated to cutting, machining and assembly of extrusions.
The assets to be transferred consisted of a few devices, but mostly materials. Éric Morin found a place for them in the ADI facilities in Saint-Hubert.
Play the full range
He kept Innovo’s line of four products and its trademarks, which are already well known in the industry. Its glazed partition systems are characterized by the thinness of the extrusions, despite their ability to adapt to uneven surfaces, and by their degree of soundproofing, he describes.
He initially thought about keeping the company name to capitalize on its notoriety, but eventually settled on creating an entirely new brand image. “We have been working on the Modullis name over the last month. »
A blurry market
The low fixed costs allow Éric Morin to dive into what he considers to be “a relatively low-risk adventure”, when he has only a very vague, even obscure, idea of the market.
“There are certainly a few billion in turnover in that, but how much? We don’t really know,” he admits.
Innovo made most of its sales in Quebec, with some sales in the United States. “The strategy is going to be to talk to our distributors. There are discussions that have already started to see how they can represent the product on a North American scale. »
Maximize
The success of the takeover largely depended on the transfer of allegiance from Maxime Sorel, senior partner at Innovo and responsible for sales, marketing and product development. His commitment was “a key element in our decision”, insists Éric Morin.
Maxime Sorel also finds his account there.
“For him, it’s day and night to have someone who is able to buy $30,000 worth of hardware in five minutes,” underlines the president, before concluding in a very timely formula: “I think that we have a good formula for maximizing returns with Maxime. »
Patlin Textiles wants to do battle with the labor shortage
The curtain rises on a new automated production at Textiles Patlin, a company in Saint-Paulin, Mauricie, which specializes in the manufacture of draperies and window and bed coverings. It has just invested $600,000 “in order to counter the labor shortage and double our production with our current workforce,” explains its vice-president Sonia Chevalier. The company has 48 employees and “no one loses their job”, she says. The investment allowed him to acquire a laser cutting machine, an automated sewing machine equipped with a conveyor belt which will assemble the long sections of draperies, a device which will facilitate the recutting of large pieces, and finally an automatic ironing system. Already very present in eastern Canada, Textiles Patlin wants to open a window on the western part of the country, “especially since the hotel market has finally come out of its torpor after two years,” says the vice-president. The family business, founded in 1991, is now managed by Patrice and Sonia Chevalier, children of the founders.
A hot pizza vending machine
An automatic machine that distributes homemade pizzas seems like an irreconcilable contradiction, but that’s the goal of Casa Pizza, a very young company that has just put its first device into operation at Place Montréal Trust. This process makes it possible to offer “a fresh and hot pizza” in just four minutes, the company informs us paradoxically. The unit, which can hold 64 12-inch pizzas, offers four different toppings. It can produce hot or cold pizzas to reheat them at home. Casa Pizza wants to widely distribute its concept. According to its promotional document, the company ensures that the machines are restocked with locally produced artisanal pizzas. “We have built a solid relationship with our suppliers in order to bring a turnkey concept to Quebec,” said Difallah Salim, co-founder of the company, by email. Hot pizza vending machines have been around for a few years, especially in Ontario, but this seems to be its first appearance in Quebec.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY CASA PIZZAS
The Casa Pizzas vending machine produces a hot pizza in four minutes.
An atypical acquisition
Keurig Dr Pepper Canada — nothing to do with the pharmaceutical industry — has acquired the Quebec brand of ready-to-drink alcohol-free cocktails Atypique, co-founded in 2020 by former Montreal Alouettes player and TV host Étienne Boulay. The brand was owned by Station Agro-Biotech, a company from the Saint-Hyacinthe Agrifood Technopole that specializes in the manufacture and marketing of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. It notably includes the Noroi distillery, the Le Bilboquet microbrewery and, until recently, the Atypique soft drinks. In the regions where they are distributed, Atypique drinks already hold 42% of the market share for mocktails, a category that saw a 30% increase in dollar sales in Canada last year.
66%
The proportion of Canadians who say they make an effort to buy from small businesses rather than large online retailers, according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. For Quebecers, it is 73%.