Burnaby-based Canlan Ice Sports Corp. (TSX: ICE) has just acquired a three-sheet ice sports complex in the Chicago suburb of Romeoville in a foreclosure sale.
“We’re always looking for these real deep-discount opportunistic acquisitions,” said Michael Gellard, Canlan’s CFO and senior vice-president, noting that the company paid around US$3.8 million for the International Ice Centre, which cost approximately $US13.8 million to build. He commented that the land alone in the new acquisition is likely worth US$2 million.
“These ones don’t come by too often with such a great value.”
Gellard said Canlan actually operated the 106,000-square-foot facility for six months after it was built in 2006, but that when the owners took back its operation, they got into financial difficulties “right off the bat.”
Canlan, the largest private-sector owner and operator of recreational ice sports facilities in North America, currently owns and-or manages 22 facilities in Canada and the U.S. The Romeoville acquisition is the company’s third American facility.
Gellard said the company is currently looking for acquisition opportunities in both Canada and the U.S. He noted rink ownership is quite different in the two countries.
“Most of the rinks you see built in Canada are government-supported or municipality-supported, whereas in the U.S. they’re all private operators – and a lot of them really don’t know what they’re doing when they get into these things.”
On the Canadian side of the border, he said, Canlan is looking at public-private partnerships in Winnipeg and Regina.
“It’s so expensive to build these things now, they don’t really make any economic sense for a private operator to build them from scratch, so we’re not going to be building any rinks,” he said. “We’re going to be focused on more of this opportunistic type of acquisition that we did in Romeoville.”
Jenny Wagler
Twitter: JennyWagler_BIV