Warren Cinquina, president of the Canadian Wood Truss Association, gave an exclusive interview with Pro Dealer magazine recently. It was featured in our Q2 issue, which mailed to pro dealers in the middle of May. (If you’re serving contractors as a substantial part of your business, and you’re not getting Pro Dealer magazine, click here to subscribe—for free!)
Cinquina is not only the president of the CWTA, he’s the vice-president of one of Canada’s most important independent truss plants—London Truss, in London, Ont.
One of the themes that came out of Cinquina’s interview was consolidation. Just as many lumberyards and hardware stores are going through succession right now, truss plants are too.
“The market’s looking for it, right? You have a lot of cottage plants, mom-and-pop shops, from the 70s or 80s,” Cinquina said. “They might even be second generation and ready to retire now. Some of these plants, they’re in good locations, they’re strong plants, they’ve got great people. And consolidation really helps a lot of these employees in the industry. It’s not a bad or a good thing. It’s just an opportunity that exists.”
Elsewhere in our truss plants feature, we took a look at Hadi Abassi, whose company, Atlas Engineered Products (AEP), is based in Nanaimo, B.C. AEP has played the role of consolidator in the truss plants business.
Abassi started out by buying a tiny truss plant in Nanaimo in 1999. It had revenues of only $95,000 a year—and the record shows that Abassi paid only $45,000 for it. Fast forward to today. AEP owns no fewer than eight truss plants in four provinces, all of them purchased from independent operators.
To reinforce its position as the consolidator of Canadian truss plants, AEP went public in 2017, when revenues were $8 million, according to reports. It made its first acquisition in 2018, acquiring its second facility, Clinton Building Components, in Southern Ontario. It also bought two other truss plants that year, Satellite Building Components, in Eastern Ontario, and Pacer Building Components, in Southwestern Ontario.
Since them, AEP has acquired South Central Building Systems in Carman, Man.; Novum Building Components in Abbotsford, B.C.; and Hi-Tec Industries, on Vancouver Island, just 17 km from AEP’s original plant in Nanaimo. A huge deal was next: AEP acquired New Brunswick’s Léon Chouinard et Fils, another high volume truss plant. In December 2024, AEP acquired 42 acres of land in Colborne, Ont., where AEP plans to build a high-tech housing components factory.
