Weekly Regional Business Intelligence | | | Written by Kieran Delamont, Associate Editor, London Inc. | | | KingSett Capital takes 50 per cent stake in CF Masonville Place Canadian private equity firm KingSett Capital is acquiring a 50 per cent co-ownership stake in Masonville Place from Cadillac Fairview, the firm announced. The acquisition reportedly values the north end mall at “nearly $450 million,” according to Green Street News. KingSett Capital said in a LinkedIn post that the investment “aligns with the growth fund’s focus on providing sustainable in-place cash flow and meaningful opportunities for long-term value creation,” and called CF Masonville Place a “dominant regional shopping centre.” It’s the second acquisition that KingSett has made from CF’s portfolio in recent months, having purchased a pair of office towers in Vancouver over the summer. The upshot: KingSett Capital isn’t new to the London mall space, having recently acquired and then sold Westmount Commons (previously Westmount Shopping Centre) to Farhi Holdings Corporation over the summer. And it has quite a bit of experience with shopping centres elsewhere. It owns 75 per cent of the Bayshore Shopping Centre in Ottawa, and the office towers it bought in Vancouver are attached to CF Pacific Centre, the largest shopping mall in British Columbia. KingSett had initially planned a large residential development on the Westmount property, but the firm seems to be pulling back on those sorts of redevelopment plans. “We’re looking away from development, away from land, away from construction, and we’re focusing on credit, income-producing core and core-plus assets, and generating value-add and opportunity fund returns,” KingSett’s CEO Rob Kumer Green Street News. Read more: Retail Insider | | | J-AAR acquires heavy civil road construction unit of The Seegmiller Group London-based construction firm J-AAR is buying The Seegmiller Group’s civil construction division for an undisclosed amount, the company announced on Monday. “We are excited to welcome The Seegmiller’s road-building operations into J-AAR and continue delivering important infrastructure projects to the communities we serve,” said Ryan Aarts, J-AAR CEO. “Like Seegmiller, we are a family-owned business with a commitment to our people and local communities. We look forward to building on their legacy and collaborating together in ways that strengthen our industry and communities.” The transaction will see J-AAR take over Seegmiller’s road building operations, including ongoing infrastructure projects, as well as its construction employees. The upshot: The acquisition will beef up J-AAR’s capacity for heavy infrastructure projects, with additional workforce and construction machinery (J-AAR is already managing several large road projects in the Kitchener-Waterloo area, including the Dundee Roundabout and the Frederick Street reconstruction project). On the Kitchener-based Seegmiller side, it looks like the deal frees them up to pivot more towards land development and equipment repair. “We have seen a lot of change in the industry in the last decade, and this transition positions The Seegmiller Group to align its businesses with opportunities that we see ahead. My family and I will continue to support J-AAR and are fully invested in the success of the civil construction operations now under their leadership,” said firm president Nora Seegmiller. “We look forward to seeing the team thrive and continuing the legacy of excellence they’ve built in the communities we all serve.” Read more: J-AAR | | | ArcelorMittal Tailored Blanks breaks ground on new Ingersoll manufacturing facility ArcelorMittal Tailored Blanks (AMTB), a global producer of laser-welded blanks (laser-fused steel blanks used for stamping parts, primarily in the automotive sector), has begun construction on a new production facility in Ingersoll. The 154,000 square-foot plant (rendering pictured) is set to be completed some time next year, with plans to officially open by December 2026. “The construction of this facility marks a significant milestone for AMTB and the Town of Ingersoll,” said Rob Whitmore, executive VP of new blanking at AMTB. “Our site search yielded 41 different sites to consider, and Ingersoll came out on top with a central location, access to skilled employees, competitive cost, and their ability to meet our accelerated schedule.” Hiring for the new plant has started and the company has indicated that it will be hiring 20 employees by the end of 2025, and 35 employees by the end of 2026. AMTB tailored blanks technology has been gaining fast adoption among automotive manufacturers, allowing for material optimization, weight reduction, cost efficiency and manufacturing simplicity while reducing the carbon dioxide equivalent footprint automobiles. Based in Luxembourg, parent company ArcelorMittal S.A. is the world’s second largest steel manufacturer and has steel-making operations in 15 countries. The upshot: If you’re going to set up a manufacturing facility and hope to have an easy-ish time attracting employees, you could do much worse than to set up in a small town still reeling from the news that there is going to be a major workforce reduction at GM’s CAMI Assembly plant. It’s also close to an existing AMTB facility in Woodstock and is close to the Ontario and Michigan markets the company will primarily serve. “We couldn’t be more honoured that ArcelorMittal Tailored Blanks chose Ingersoll as their home,” said Ingersoll mayor Brian Petrie. Curtis Tighe, director of economic development and tourism for Ingersoll, said “the arrival of AMTB marks an exciting new chapter for Ingersoll,” and that “the partnership that we have built with AMTB will create meaningful opportunities for our community, from staffing to local businesses.” Read more: Town of Ingersoll | CTV News London | | | Labatt adds another non-alc to Horton Street production Labatt’s Horton Street facility has started brewing the non-alcoholic Michelob Ultra Zero, its latest foray into the non-alcoholic beer sector. “It’s the growth of the category that opens the door for us to bring more of our iconic brands over into non-alcohol,” said Labatt’s vice-president of non-alcoholic beverages, Doug Port. Labatt said it has already started production, and consumers can expect to see Michelob Ultra Zero appearing on shelves towards the end of this month. “With the non-alcohol beer segment continuing to gain momentum in Canada, this is the ideal time to debut another alcohol-free beer,” Port said in a press release. The upshot: Earlier in the year, Labatt starting to produce Busch De-Alc in London, a de-alcoholized version of Busch beer. It’s part of a wider effort for Labatt to expand its non-alcoholic lineup, which mainly includes zero- or low-alcohol versions of existing brands (including Corona Cero, the best-selling non-alc beer in the country). Labatt has invested heavily in the London plant’s capacity recently, including $26.6 million in investments in the past year, on top of a $5-million upgrade in 2016 that improved their de-alcoholizaition capabilities, hoping to capitalize on the growth of the non-alcoholic sector domestically. “We know that in markets like Europe, non-alcoholic beer represents 10 per cent of the beer industry,” Port told the Canadian Press. “We can more than double the size of the category here in Canada, which opens the door for us to bring more choices to Canadians.” Read more: Canadian Press | London Free Press | | | Forest City Velodrome rides on yet again The Halloween season is here, and things are mysteriously rising from the dead — like the Forest City Velodrome (FCV), which has been saved at the eleventh hour yet again. A financial donation from local development firm 401 L Inc. for an undisclosed amount appears to have given the Forest City Velodrome another year of runway. “Some funding has come together, which has given us the opportunity to open the building and provide some fun for the kids,” FCV co-founder Rob Good told The London Free Press. “We’re trying everything to keep our heads above water.” According to Good, the cash injection will allow the facility to stay open and keep membership costs around $1,000 a year — higher than they were, but about half of what they would have needed to be to keep the facility open on its own. The upshot: FCV is proving to be almost cat-like in its ability to have additional lives, and the operators say this will allow them to keep operating for at least another year. “It’s going to operate the way it always has, with volunteers, with people chipping in and, fingers crossed, we’ll make sure that we’ve got the revenues coming in so we can have the programming there for the kids,” Good said. The source of the donation might be interesting to some as well. There isn’t much information publicly available about 401 L Inc., the developer that made the donation, but their name does appear alongside Flexion Properties in a number of old municipal documents; Flexion Properties is the owner of the building that houses the Forest City Velodrome. (Calls and emails to Flexion and 401 L Inc. went unanswered on Thursday.) Read more: London Free Press | | | Western Fair Raceway launches season with starter car designed by Western Engineering students The harness racing season has kicked off at the Western Fair Raceway, with a homegrown innovation to the way harness races are started. The Raceway has been working with a team of students from Western University’s engineering faculty for two years to develop a new starter car — the vehicle that leads the horses out at the start of the race. “With new start cars difficult to source, the Western Fair Association asked a simple question: could local engineering students help build a new one?” reads a press release from the Western Fair Raceway. “On opening night, the new starter car will roll out for its first official test in front of racing fans, drivers and the very students who helped bring it to life.” Professor John Makaran of Western Engineering said the team of four students — Alexander Novoa, Ethan Reid, Lauren Douglas and Jeffrey Donado — provided valuable work on the analysis and documentation of the proposed solution. “[They are]an excellent example of the capabilities of the team and of our students in general.” The Western team of students worked with Essex-based Dave Woods, who was engaged to construct the vehicle. The upshot: What, you may ask, is so difficult about building a starter car? A starter car is typically a vehicle with two large mechanical gates on either side; it drives forward towards the official start line (with a rear-facing starter who keep an eye on the drivers and watch for any rule infractions) and then raises the gates and accelerates out of the way as soon as the start line has been crossed. The engineering team says they’ve built a system that is transferable from truck to truck, meaning they won’t have to start from scratch on sourcing a vehicle if this new one breaks down. (They’re using a 2025 GMC Sierra, if you were wondering.) “It’s a very smooth and very quiet ride, which is a large concern in the middle of a race,” said Ethan Reid. “You don’t want to be scaring the horses with clanging gates or a jerky motion.” So far, the new vehicle is getting a thumbs up from John Lilley, the official starter of the harness races. He called it “awesome,” telling CBC News London it was a “very good truck. Heavy duty, lots of power.” Read more: Western Fair District | CBC News London | | | Dispatch: October 10, 2025 A summary of recent business appointments and announcements, plus event listings for the upcoming week. View listings here | | | | |