Gin-Cor Industries of Mattawa has added J.C. Trailers Design & Fabrication of Keswick to the fold.
The northeastern Ontario heavy truck upgrader expects this latest acquisition to benefit employees, customers, suppliers and dealers.
The acquisition, which was finalized on April 8, is really a succession plan for J.C. Trailers founder John Csiki and his wife, Helga.
Gin-Cor president-CEO Luc Stang said the Csiki family has been a supplier to Gin-Cor for 20 years.
Discussions began last June and progressed through last summer.
Stang said this acquisition dovetails nicely with his company’s previous April 2015 acquisition, Durabody Industries of Bond Head (north of Toronto), a custom truck and trailer manufacturer with clients like Manitoulin Transport.
Stang said adding J.C. broadens their geographical reach, adds to their client base and meets the need for additional manufacturing capacity.
“We were running out capacity and space at Durabody,” said Stang. “For the continued growth demands for that organization, and J.C. being in Keswick, 40 minutes from Durabody, it lends itself hand-in-hand with giving us additional capacity and additional depth and expertise in trailer manufacturing.”
Durabody builds enclosed van body trailers for shipping general freight or specialty materials.
J.C. Trailer manufactures trailers for hauling excavators, large mining machinery, and heavy pieces of equipment between 35 tonnes to 100 tonnes.
With a combined workforce of 160, Gin-Cor is inheriting 35 employees, some of whom have more than three decades of experience in customizing heavy-haul trailers and other specialty products
Stang said both Gin-Cor and J.C. Trailer have common clients, but it also allows Gin-Cor to branch off into a new market segment and pick up new customers.
“The construction market where we build our dump trucks, we often have a J.C.-type product with a tag-along trailer to go behind a dump truck to pull a small compacter, backhoe or bulldozer.
“We’ll be able to take the client needs for the dump truck to also build the equipment that pulls their equipment. And with their heavy floats, they’ll be some similar and other specialized clients.”
Gin-Cor is an award-winning heavy truck accessory manufacturer, modifying all brands of major name-brand truck chassis in performing custom installations of dump boxes, snow plows, sanders, flatbeds, cranes and decks. The company has parts and service locations in Carleton Place and Kingston.
Besides winning a Northern Ontario Business Award in 2012, Gin-Cor earned a spot on the 2015 Profit Magazine 500 list, ranking 276th in the annual ranking of Canada’s fastest-growing companies.
Stang said business is brisk these days.
Gin-Cor built an 18,000-square-foot addition in Mattawa shop in 2012, but Stang said they’re probably not far off from needing another shop space.
“It’s running quite strong. We’ve had a lot of growth in Mattawa with that plant expansion. We’ve more than doubled our business since 2012.”
With the combined strength of the three companies, he expects they’ll have capacity to build more than 1,000 units a year.
“It will end up creating more growth at each of our locations,” said Stang, “and even with Mattawa, where Gin-Cor now produces products for Durabody, we’ll be producing for J.C. which will add to the workforce.”
