Performance Ag Group, a retail operation in Alberta with two locations at Calmar and Evansburg, is being acquired by the Crop Management Network (CMN), a joint venture comprised of local employee owners and partnered with Agrico Canada. With eight existing locations, CMN is Alberta’s largest retail network.
“When the opportunity to acquire Performance Ag Group was presented to us, we were very excited,” said James Mitchell, CEO of CMN. “The business has great people and the geography fits into our footprint. CMN can further utilize our best-in-class assets to provide the customers in these geographies with CMN’s customer-driven, innovative, and agronomy-focused service.”
Mike Mueller, General Manager of Performance Ag’s Calmar and Evansburg locations, will remain in that position and become an employee owner of CMN. “I am pleased that the Crop Management Network has recognized the importance of this business and the customers we serve,” said Mueller. “With them on board, we will be able to grow our product and service offering to our customers and be an integral part of their business.”
Performance Ag has been in business under different names for more than 30 years, and has seven full-time employees, all of whom will be transitioning to CMN. The original business was started in 1988 as McDonald Agri Services. The company was purchased in 2005 by Harold Ziebel, and rebranded as Har-De Agri Services. The business then underwent a rebrand in 2017 to become Performance Ag Group.
The conditional agreement, which was first announced on March 6, has not yet been concluded, but Mitchell told Green Markets that closing is expected by the second week of April. Ziebel will be retiring at the conclusion of the sale.
Performance Ag serves growers in west-central Alberta with a range of products and services, including granular and liquid fertilizer, canola and forage seed, herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides. The fertilizer products handled by the company include urea, UAN-28, MAP, 10-34-0, potash, 20.5-0-0-24 sulfur, elemental sulfur, and granular and foliar micronutrients.
CMN has existing locations at Camrose, Daysland, Edberg, Fort Saskatchewan, Holden, Vegreville, Stettler, and Kelsey. CMN also operates an integrated logistics company, Crop Management Logistics Inc., which allows it to source products efficiently and provide timely service to its customers and retail locations.
CMN announced the completion of a new liquid fertilizer plant on March 19 at its Stettler facility. The company said the new plant can take delivery by truck or rail, and will allow CMN to provide “consistent availability” of liquid nitrogen, phosphate, and sulfur. The new plant joins CMN’s existing liquid storage facilities at Vegreville, Kelsey, and Edberg.