VANCOUVER, Feb. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- WesternOne Equity Income Fund ("WesternOne Equity") (TSXV: WEQ.UN and WEQ.DB) today announced the signing of acquisition and related agreements to purchase the assets and the business of Deerfoot Equipment Rentals Ltd. ("Deerfoot Rentals"), a general equipment rental company located in Calgary and Lethbridge, Alberta. The agreements contemplate WesternOne paying at closing a combined purchase price of $13.0 million (including a $0.9 million capital expenditure adjustment), which is subject to additional post closing adjustments (the "Acquisition"). The transaction is expected to be completed, subject to the execution of additional agreements, on or before February 18, 2008.
Deerfoot Rentals is a leading player in the Southern Alberta equipment rental industry. Management of Deerfoot Rentals is focussed on increasing its share of residential, commercial and infrastructure construction equipment rentals within the Calgary and Lethbridge markets and beyond.
Deerfoot Rentals is a Volvo Rents franchisee in its current markets and has the option to open additional Volvo Rents franchise locations in Saskatoon and Regina, Saskatchewan.
WesternOne Equity will pay for the Acquisition using a combination of existing cash, debt financing under an existing credit facility and the issuance of 125,000 exchangeable units convertible to public units of WesternOne Equity on a one-for-one basis. This investment is expected to be accretive to WesternOne Equity's unitholders, with $2.9 million in EBITDA for the twelve months ended December 31, 2007.
Mr. Darren Latoski, CEO of WesternOne Equity, states "this Acquisition provides an additional platform rental business, an experienced in-place management team within the Southern Alberta market, and an excellent fit to our existing rental platform business in British Columbia. We will continue to look to consolidate in this and other industries in the future."
About WesternOne Equity -----------------------
WesternOne Equity has been established to seek out and acquire predominantly privately owned businesses located primarily in the Western Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, in order to generate stable and growing distributions to its unitholders as well as to achieve overall capital appreciation.
Additional information about WesternOne Equity is available at http://www.weq.ca/ or http://www.sedar.com/.
Forward-Looking Statements --------------------------
Certain statements in this press release may constitute "forward-looking" statements that involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. When used in this press release, such statements often use, but are not limited to, such words as "may", "will", "expect", "should", "believe", "intend", "plan", "anticipate", "potential", and other similar terminology. These statements reflect current expectations of WesternOne Equity's management regarding future events and operating performance and speak only as of the date of this press release. Forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties, should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results, and will not necessarily be accurate indications of whether or not such results will be achieved. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the following factors: competitive and economic environment, impact of changes to tax treatment of income trusts or dividend tax credits, foreign exchange, seasonality, inability to close or realize accretive benefits from acquisitions, fluctuation of cash distributions, nature of trust units and unfavourable changes in capital markets. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based upon what WesternOne Equity's management believes to be reasonable assumptions, WesternOne Equity cannot assure investors that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release and WesternOne Equity assumes no obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances, other than as required by law.
THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE HAS NOT REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR THE ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.
CONTACT: Andrew Greig, Manager of Investor Relations, or Carlos Yam, Chief Financial Officer, WesternOne Equity Income Fund, Suite 910, 925 West Georgia Street, Vancouver, BC, V6C 3L2, Phone: (604) 678-4042, E-mail:
