Linamar acquires manufacturer of spreaders, seeders and tillage equipment in $260 million deal.
By Andrew Joseph, Farms.com; Image of BB1 Trooper precision ag spreader via Salford Group
Linamar Corporation, an advanced manufacturing company based in Guelph, Ontario, has announced it will acquire the Salford Group of companies, a global leader in precision ag crop nutrition application and tillage products.
The $260 million deal is expected to close in Q2 of 2022.
Acquiring Salford Group will expand Linamar’s agriculture’s portfolio, currently headed up by products from MacDon Industries Limited.
The Salford brand will continue, and Salford Group will continue to leverage its established manufacturing and distribution network to sell its products.
“This is an exciting and important acquisition for Linamar,” said Linda Hasenfratz, Executive Chair and Chief Executive Officer at Linamar. “Salford has a strong portfolio of differentiated products in the crop nutrition application and tillage segments. These are areas we had identified in our agriculture growth strategy as highly attractive segments for future product diversification.”
Added Jim Jarrell, Linamar President and Chief Operating Officer: “Agriculture and food is a key element of our Linamar 2100 strategic roadmap, which was first outlined following our acquisition of MacDon in 2018. Through MacDon, we already have an established market-leading position in the harvesting segment. Tillage and crop nutrition are a natural complement to that product portfolio which will allow us to accelerate sales of all products. Combining Linamar’s scaled resources and global reach with Salford’s leading reputation will drive value creation for all stakeholders.”
Opening its doors in 1978, Salford Group is headquartered in Salford, Ontario producing under its self-named brand, pneumatic and spinner type fertilizer spreaders, cover crop seeders, and a wide gamut of tillage equipment. It has three manufacturing locations in Canada (Ontario and Manitoba) and two in the US (Georgia and Iowa).
Per Salford, its product are durable, innovative, and complementary to mainline OEM (original equipment manufacturer) products, offering distinct performance advantages related to higher productivity, greater efficiency and environmental sustainability.
The company has been able to leverage technological developments in precision agriculture to allow producers to manage their crop production with an increasing degree of accuracy. Salford products are highly engineered and focused on innovation and durability.
It has a team of 33 R&D professionals to help it continuously offer new products annually that key in on enhancing soil productivity and yield potential in the growing precision ag market.
Salford is the only company in North America carrying a full line of surface and sub-surface granular applicators—spinner spreaders and air-boom spreaders for surface application, pneumatic applicators for sub-surface application.
“We are very excited to join the Linamar family,” summed up Geof Gray, President of Salford Group. “Linamar and MacDon both have excellent reputations in the industry and we believe the combination of our resources, our respective brand strengths and distribution networks will enable Salford to compete and innovate at a higher level with greater market coverage, delivering even more value to dealers and farmers.”
For more information on Salford’s lineup of agriculture equipment offerings, https://salfordgroup.com/.