Weekly Regional Business Intelligence
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Written by Kieran Delamont, Associate Editor, London Inc.
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Adonis confirms London supermarket location, begins recruitment for up to 150 positions
Adonis Mediterranean Market announced this week that its new London location is scheduled to be open at the end of the summer, and the store will be located at the Westwood Power Centre at the intersection of Bradley Avenue and Wonderland Road (pictured). The Quebec-based mediterranean and middle eastern grocery specialist, owned by Metro, is currently recruiting for up to 150 positions at the London location, which will become the fifth location for Adonis in Ontario and the 16th for the banner overall. “We are excited to bring Adonis’ unique offering to London and to be part of this vibrant and diverse community,” said Éric Provost, vice president at Adonis. “Providing customers with an exceptional shopping experience, quality products and an authentic taste is what we’re all about. By visiting our various departments, customers will be able to discover new and rich culinary traditions from all over the Mediterranean region.”
The upshot: Popular in other markets, especially among Lebanese and Greek-Canadian communities, the company’s entry into London gives Metro a presence in the city’s growing ethnic grocery sector, where giant rival Loblaw already has a foothold with its 39,000-square-foot, Asian-focused T&T Supermarket, which opened at Wonderland Road and Oxford Street last September. Alongside its international food fare, Adonis said that it sources much of its fresh produce from local farmers. It also sources a significant percentage of its meats, poultry and other products from Canadian suppliers.
Read more: Western Grocer | Canadian Grocer
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OES Inc. acquired by Reichmann Segal Capital Partners
Electrical and electronics manufacturing firm OES Inc. has been acquired by a Toronto-based private equity firm, the company announced this week. Founded in London in 1980 and consisting of three divisions ― OES Manufacturing, OES Scoreboards and OES Technologies ― the company is best known for its scoreboards and LED video displays that not only populate most rinks around the country, they are also used in 40 per cent of NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB and NCAA venues. The company was acquired from its previous owners, Ardenton Capital, by Reichmann Segal Capital Partners, a Toronto-based firm that has a subsidiary, Athletica Sport Systems, which is an industry leader in manufacturing the boards around hockey rinks and is the main supplier of rink equipment to the NHL. “OES is a spectacular company with an exceptional senior leadership team. The scoreboard business is what drew us in, but the team [Jeff Stewart, CEO of OES] has assembled and their technical expertise is truly what makes OES special,” said Charles Reichmann. Stewart, who will continue to lead the company, said that they were “thrilled to be joining forces with Reichmann Segal and Athletica,” and added that “we have the opportunity to really move the needle and set new standards.”
The upshot: Reichmann Segal obviously sees growth potential in sports infrastructure ― its investment in OES follows closely on the heels of last year’s acquisition of Athletica. Both make sense on their own – there is interest from pro hockey leagues not only in the boards themselves (from a safety perspective) but what is on the boards, and there is also interest across major sports leagues in improving fan viewing experiences. What will be interesting to watch is where they see convergence between these two trajectories. Jarrad Segal of Reichmann Segal said they “expect significant cross-collaboration between the two franchises,” and they “see tremendous promise and growth potential with our entry into the electronic manufacturing services and custom technology markets.”
Read more: Canadian Manufacturing | Private Equity Professional
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Council endorses funding for program to reduce core commercial vacancies
City council is hashing out the details around a signature piece of the mayor’s plan to revitalize downtown ― the Vacant Commercial Space Fit-Out Program ― a cash grant program that would provide up to $50,000 to cover half of the cost to renovate a vacant commercial space when opening a business in core areas. The program has a budget behind it now ― $975,000, or roughly 15 to 25 projects per year through 2027. Mayor Josh Morgan first unveiled the program during his 2025 State of the City address and said Tuesday he wanted to get the money out the door quickly. “The time for providing an injection into the core area, given the office vacancy rate, is now,” he told The London Free Press. “What I like about this program [is] it’s dollar-for-dollar, so it’s not a grant, there’s skin in the game from the tenant,” added planning chair Steve Lehman. “It’s not just for the landlord to improve their building, it’s going to the tenant to ensure that it is occupied.”
The upshot: While just about everyone is behind this program, its rollout wasn’t without some controversy. Initially, it was pitched for the downtown and Richmond Row districts only, but after some vocal objections (Kevin Morrison, general manager of the OEV BIA, told the planning and environment committee it was “insulting” that other core areas were excluded), Mayor Morgan extended the program to the Midtown and OEV districts. “It’s a very welcomed initiative, and one that will have a significant positive impact,” Morrison said after the expansion was endorsed. “Private investors are now turning their attention to Old East Village; this is a pivotal time for us to reinforce and accelerate that revitalization and not be left behind.”
Read more: CTV News London | London Free Press
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Unifor wants Canada Post to buy CAMI BrightDrop vans
With tariff uncertainty continuing to swirl around the future of the CAMI plant, various players are hoping that the government will step in to backstop the plant by purchasing its BrightDrop electric vans. Unifor’s national president Lana Payne has reportedly been lobbying various levels of government to consider bulk purchases of the cargo vans, possibly to supply Canada Post with new vehicles. That’s an idea that’s getting traction on the shop floor ― Unifor Local 88 president Mike Van Boekel endorsed the idea, saying that they “should be talking about procurement for Canadian-built first, before we go outside the country.” There’s an interest for the government in protecting their investments here ― in 2022, the federal and provincial governments each invested $259 million in retooling the plant to be Canada’s first large-scale EV factory. Local MP Peter Fragiskatos expressed some support for the idea. “Anything that will add jobs or sustain existing jobs, I’m in favour of,” he said. “I will add my voice to this.”
The upshot: Although Canada Post hasn’t commented on the idea, on its face the idea of supplying the post office with BrightDrop vans makes sense ― Canada Post has previously announced its intention to fully electrify its fleet by 2040, and its first major investment into that plan came in the form of the Virginia-made Morgan Olson C250 van, which would be subject to Canada’s retaliatory 25 per cent auto tariffs. If CAMI suddenly has a bunch of delivery vans that it can’t sell across the border, putting some of them into service here would make sense. “For taxpayers it’s the best bang for their buck” for the government to be buying and using the vans, said Van Boekel. “We have a lot of inventory and this would help.” But there are other ideas being floated to make use of CAMI’s capacity, with the Hyundai-GM EV van collaboration still being talked about as a potential new line of business for CAMI ― although with the tariff situation, there is speculation that Hyundai may instead back its Metaplant America EV plant in Georgia as the preferred manufacturing site for the partnership.
Read more: Detroit Free Press | London Free Press
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Planning committee rejects 10-storey apartment building proposal for Sarnia Road
Council’s planning committee has sent a proposal for a 10-storey apartment building on Sarnia Road back to the drawing board after residents complained about the height. “I can’t get over going from six to 10, that just seems, for me, too big an increase here,” said planning chair and councillor for the area Steve Lehman, referencing the six-storey limit in existing planning documents. The building would include 182 units, nearly double the current zoning that would allow around 100 units. The committee voted four to one to deny the zoning amendments requested by the developer, London-based Royal Premier Homes.
The upshot: The planning committee’s decision was pushed along by residents who were unhappy about the proposal, with one resident, Alex Babanski, drawing up an online petition with more than 200 signatures. Babanski spoke at the planning committee meeting, saying “all I see are sacrifices, less green space, more congestion, more risk and zero gain for those of us who already live here.” The lone voice in favour of the development as proposed was Deputy Mayor Shawn Lewis, who said that he didn’t feel staff’s recommendation took everything into account. It might not be curtains for the proposed version just yet ― council will technically have the opportunity to revisit the proposal on April 22, though it is probably more likely that Royal Premier Homes will try to come to a compromise with the city.
Read more: London Free Press
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Residential rents remain stable in March
There was little movement on rent prices in London in last month’s market snapshot by Rentals.ca, with a 0 per cent month-over-month change for one bedrooms (average price $1,766) and a very marginal 0.1 per cent decline in the price of a two bedroom (average price $2,178). Prices for the former are down 0.9 percent over March 2024, but up 1.8 percent for the latter. That more or less mirrored the national trend, where rents saw a modest 1.5 per cent increase amid the usual end-of-the-school-year uptick in rental activity. This month’s report followed the last few months of Rentals.ca dispatches in noting that more purpose-built rental buildings have been coming online, which appears to be easing rents somewhat, although the overall story trend is still one of relatively flat price movement in either direction.
The upshot: The rental market being more or less flat over the past few months has dropped it from the public spotlight, and a recent CBC article noted that for all the handwringing over rent prices and overall affordability in the last few years, renters haven’t featured very prominently in the federal election campaign. “If you look at the housing platforms for the major parties, there really is a lack of language there that surrounds renters,” said Simon Fraser public policy professor Alexandre Rivard. The tariffs and the trade war might also affect rent prices in the months to come, but hasn’t had much of an effect as of yet.
Read more: Rentals.ca
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Dispatch: April 11, 2025
A summary of recent business appointments and announcements, plus event listings for the upcoming week.
View listings here
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