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Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Canada firm buys Philly's Granary, hospital designers

Stantec, an Edmonton, Canada firm that's been rolling up U.S. business consultants during the recession, has acquired Granary Associates, a Philadelphia project-management and hospital-design firm with around 120 workers, including 75 at its 20th and Callowhill  headquarters, the rest in New York and Qatar. The firms wouldn't say what Stantec paid.

"There's a lot of consolidation going on," Stantec chief financial officer Rich Allen told me. His company claimed $1.3 billion (US) in sales last year, and higher sales so far this year, but all the gain was from acquisitions, not internal growth, which slowed. Granary sales totalled around $30.5 million.

Granary was started in 1979 as a group within the former Mediq Inc., and had been independent since 1995. Granary has counted the University of Pennsylvania and Jefferson hospital systems in Philadelphia, Sloan Kettering and St. Vincent's in New York, and Robert Wood Johnson in New Jersey among its clients, plus hospitals across Pennsylvania and in Tennessee.

"They're adding to our healthcare business," which includes a San Francisco-based architecture office, Allen said. "There's not a lot of overlap. The plan is to integrate all" Granary employees.

Granary co-chairman James W. Eastwood says the firm's project-management business has been doing well, since hospitals keep building despite the recession, but architecture for new hospital projects has been "slower," with projects on hold both because of the recession and uncertainty over Obama's healthcare reforms. He said Stantec had approached Granary earlier this year about a combination. "It gives our younger people a great opportunity to grow this company out from Philadelphia," Eastwood concluded.

Separately, Stantec is combining 60 workers in the former local offices of two companies it acquired - Secor International in Exton, and Vollmer Associates in Kennett Square (fixed) - to a single West Chester site at 1060 Andrew Drive, said Stantec spokesman Jay Averill.

 

 

 

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About Joseph N. DiStefano
Joseph N. DiStefano writes this blog to feed his PhillyDeals column, which is printed in the business pages of The Philadelphia Inquirer every Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Joe has worked at the Inquirer, mostly, since 1988. He has also written for Bloomberg and Gannett, authored the book Comcasted, majored in economics at Penn, and fathered six children. Reach Joe at 215-854-5194 and JoeD@phillynews.com

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