Past Acquisitions

Founded in 1975, purchased in 1987 and still owned, CNC Manutech was the first operating company outside of the real estate industry acquired by Ignition’s president and still operates from its purpose-built facility in Enderby, British Columbia. Now for nearly 45 years CNC has provided World Class production milling, machining and heat induction solutions to a diverse range of North American customers, most notably building parts for several of North America’s major truck manufacturers. CNC’s success is best exemplified by its tightly knit team of long-term employees who strive to live up to the company’s slogan: tailored solutions, reliable lead times, and absolute quality, and proudly operate a broad suite of high quality modern and meticulously maintained CNC production equipment.

When acquired, Pride was a very small operation with sales of only $1,800,000 whose business model had been built around selling a few concentrated fruit juices to a limited clientele. The market opportunity that Ignition’s president identified, and which underpinned the Pride’s phenomenal growth, was the program developed to be able to ‘customize’ juice recipes to fit the dietary needs of its customers. Accordingly, after acquiring Pride, its business model was changed to collaborate with the dieticians in the likes of hospitals, nursing homes, and colleges, who worked with the company to provide fruit juices especially suited to the needs of each customers patients and students. After 10 years of steady market share gains and geographic reach, and with annual sales nearing $40 million, Pride was sold to a national beverage company which wished to take advantage of Prides sizable share of the institutional market.

When it was acquired in 2007, the Richform Construction Supplies Company Limited, operating from its Coquitlam, B.C. yard had sales of only $3,700,00. Basically, Richform was a modest sized construction supply company whose business model was focused on providing concrete accessories to contractors. In addition to its accessory mainstay the company had exclusive distribution arrangements with for several other compatible product lines including a good trench drain system and line of quality concrete coatings, but most importantly Ignition’s President recognized that the company’s well trained and highly regarded sales staff had a strong enough foothold in British Columbia’s Tilt-Up* (see below) construction industry that a path could be identified for Richform to become the sector’s dominate supplier. During in 2009 through mid 2011, following the construction industry slow down that had been fueled by the Worldwide Financial Crises; Richform, which was very tightly managed and benefitted from sufficient working capital reserves to be able to do so, absorbed much of its troubled competitor’s market share. This growth continued through 2018 when the company was sold to an international company in the construction supply business; at the time of the sale Richform owned Canada’s largest rental fleet of Tilt-Up equipment and had steadily grown its market share of British Columbia’s Tilt-up market to exceed 75%.

* Tilt-Up Construction features a series of large concrete panels, usually poured using the building’s concrete floor as the bottom of the form, then ‘tilted up’ to form a building’s exterior walls. Tilt-Up is the construction system from which the majority of industrial, low rise schools and office buildings are built from in British Columbia.

The Ignition Group’s most recent acquisition, purchased in early 2018 is an excellent example of the company’s focus on businesses that have their footing well established in basic industries that aren’t likely vulnerable to rapid high tech innovation – for example a new kid on the block with a better algorithm. Full Moon is a leader in the executive washroom trailer rental business enjoying a commanding share of British Columbia’s movie production and event business. Complementing the company’s rental business, Full Moon also owns and operates a fleet of pumper trunks to service its own rentals and other customers needing pump out services. Since being acquired, Full Moon has begun expanding into other compatible trailer rental products.

Founded by Ignition’s president in 1991, Queenship Yachts steadily built larger and larger yachts for international customers ranging in size from 56’ to 112’. Queenships are almost all semi-custom designs, each constructed to meet both stringent international standards and each customer’s unique criteria. In the its beginning the company’s growth was restrained by its rudimentary highly inadequate shipyard facilities that required the company to move its boats between a menagerie of small make-do buildings, sometimes no larger than the boats being built in them and whose main attribute was that the buildings were located near each other and to navigable water where the completed boats could be launched. In 2000 the company moved upstream to the new purpose-built shipyard facility it had constructed and owned with 1400 ft of waterfront on the banks of the Fraser River in Maple Ridge. In the new facility the company was able to simultaneously build twelve 60’ to 120’ yachts, in addition to service work performed at its docks and on the surrounding hardscape. Over the years Queenship earned a great deal of industry wide recognition, perhaps highlighted when its Oregon Mist (see photo) was selected finalist for the internationally coveted ‘Super Yacht of the Year’ award. In 2005 Ignition’s president sold a 70% interest in Queenship to US investors, and in 2007 he withdrew from the company’s management to concentrate on his yacht building initiatives in SE Asia and other business interests.