November 18, 2009 - An article in today’s Vancouver Sun reports that Vancouver-based Seacliff Construction Corp. has an agreement to buy Saskatchewan-based Broda Construction Group for $50 million.

Broda, with its core staff of 80, a fleet of 500 pieces of heavy equipment and $55-million in revenue and $13 million in gross profit at the end of fiscal 2009, is primarily an earth-moving and civil construction firm with clients that include CN Rail and CP Rail.

“With the addition of Broda we can now take greater advantage of the many infrastructure spending programs currently in full swing in Western Canada,” Seacliff CEO Bill Crarer said during a conference call following the announcement, which was made after the close of markets.

“Canada has a major infrastructure deficit estimated at over $100 billion and rising each passing year.”

Publicly traded Seacliff also owns the general contracting firm Dominion Construction and the electrical contracting firm Canem, and Crarer said infrastructure construction has been “our sole source of stability in a very difficult economy.”

Crarer said Seacliff will keep Broda as a separate operating company so that it will be able to operate in co-operation with Dominion, or participate in projects with competing general contractors.

He added that Broda CEO Gord Broda will remain in place as the firm’s top executive and will become a significant shareholder of Seacliff in the deal.

Crarer said the deal is scheduled to close Dec. 1 with Seacliff paying $35 million in cash, assuming $5 million in Broda’s long-term debt and by issuing some 1.1 million shares from its treasury increasing its float to 22 million shares from 20.9 million shares.