CAI Helps Portfolio Co. Tap Oil Sector

CAI Capital Management pushed its water products company Corix into the booming oil extraction market in Western Canada with a recent add-on acquisition, and the firm plans to help the company seek out more deals.

Corix, a Vancouver-based company that makes pipes, valves and other water transportation products for municipalities, farmers, contractors and other customers, acquired the Barber Group of Companies. Edmonton-based Barber Group makes measurement and control equipment used by companies in the oil, gas and industrial products sector. The deal will expose Corix to the increasingly lucrative oil industry in Western Canada, said Tracey McVicar, a managing director in CAI Capital’s Alberta office. “With products we know, we can go places we haven’t been,” she said.

McVicar declined to discuss terms of the deal or its financing, which she said came from a Canadian charter bank. Corix generates about $300 million in annual revenues.

Richard Gil, partner at accounting firm Mowbrey Gil LLP, brought the deal to CAI Capital late last year as part of a limited auction he was running for Barber. CAI Capital was familiar with Gil, as he was formerly the auditor of G.L.M. Industries, a manufacturing and engineering design company CAI Capital acquired in August 2006.

This is the third acquisition Corix has made since CAI Capital bought it in May 2006. The firm is aggressively seeking more deals, particularly companies that would broaden its Canadian distribution network.

CAI Capital, which is based in New York but deals heavily in Canada, made the acquisition out of its $375 million third fund. The firm is raising its fourth fund with a target of $767 million, according to published reports.—B.V.