Canadian pension giant Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec is raising its bet on construction company Pomerleau as the privately held builder pushes out from its home market in a bid to grab a bigger share of the country’s infrastructure spending pie.
The Caisse is making a new $150-million equity investment in Saint-Georges, Que.-based Pomerleau to support its pan-Canadian growth plan, the two companies said in a statement Wednesday.
Some of the money will be used to fund Pomerleau’s recently announced takeover of Vancouver-based ITC Construction Group, known for building dozens of residential towers making up the skylines in western cities such as Vancouver and Calgary. A portion will also be earmarked for other growth efforts as Pomerleau seeks to expand its work force of 4,000 employees and add to its current $4-billion in annual revenue.
The new funds come on top of $50-million the Caisse injected into the company in 2018, bringing its total equity investment to $200-million as a minority shareholder. The pension fund also contributed $40-million to a joint investment fund controlled by the partners that targets infrastructure and renewable energy opportunities.
“It’s a big company” that wants to get bigger by winning more work and doing mergers and acquisitions, said Kim Thomassin, executive vice-president and head of Quebec investments at the Caisse. “For us, being able to support the company in its M&A, including outside of Quebec, is part of our strategy to identify those champions that will continue to grow.”
Supporting Pomerleau is an example of the Caisse’s growing weight in Quebec, even as it extends its international footprint. The pension fund had assets in Quebec worth $78-billion at the end of last year after $6.5-billion in new investments and commitments. By comparison, the size of Quebec’s economy is about $500-billion as measured by its gross domestic product.
Caisse chief executive Charles Émond said this week he wants to go further with local investment, stating a new goal of boosting the Caisse’s Quebec-based holdings to $100-billion by 2026. The pension fund’s ability to flex its muscle extends beyond money, to providing expertise and governance advice to the companies in which it invests.
The Caisse de dépôt held $392-billion in net assets under management at the end of June. The pension fund is unique in Canada in that it has a dual mandate of achieving an optimal return on capital while at the same time contributing to Quebec’s economic development.
Founded in the Beauce region, family-controlled Pomerleau is the biggest general contractor in Quebec and among the top three in Canada behind PCL Construction and EllisDon, according to the company’s chief financial officer, Philippe Adam. The company has more than doubled its revenue since the Caisse became an investor and more than tripled its order backlog to $11-billion.
Roughly half of Pomerleau’s sales come from Quebec, where it has had a hand in some of the province’s largest and most iconic projects such as the Grand Théatre de Québec and the Réseau Express Métropolitain in Montreal. In Ontario, it worked on the Landsdowne Park redevelopment in Ottawa and the Burgoyne Bridge in St. Catharines. It also has a presence in Alberta through its Borea subsidiary, which specializes in renewable energy project construction.
“The goal is really to continue to grow, to benefit from [governments’] infrastructure and energy transition plans,” Mr. Adam said. “Maybe there’s a potential recession. But on the other hand, there’s a lot of projects, a lot of infrastructure that needs to be built.”
One key area of focus for the company across the country is residential housing. ITC alone has completed 200 housing projects worth more than $5-billion in British Columbia and Alberta and currently has 18 major projects under way. Pomerleau intends to build on that, Mr. Adam said.
In Vancouver, ITC is building luxurious condos but a lot of social housing as well, Mr. Adam said. “It’s not where they make the most money but it’s where they help the communities the most. And definitely it’s something we’d like to replicate elsewhere in Canada.”