London Inc. Weekly

Written by Kieran Delamont, Associate Editor, London Inc.

More uncertainty for PowerCo St. Thomas as Volkswagen announces plans to slash 15 per cent of workforce, close four German plants

Auto giant Volkswagen is planning to cut 100,000 jobs and end production at four German plants over the coming years, according to German publication Manager Magazin, in a move that would represent the most radical overhaul in the firm’s 89-year history. The plan, reported on Friday, would see Europe’s largest automobile manufacturer shed roughly 15 per cent of its workforce as it seeks to counter intensifying global competition from Chinese car brands. It would also see the Wolfsburg-headquartered company reduce planned investment in the company by about 15 per cent to just over $148.2 billion over the next five years and cease production at German plants in Hanover, Zwickau, Emden, alongside Audi’s Neckarsulm site. Volkswagen had already laid out plans to implement sweeping job cuts and launched a major product offensive as it seeks to boost profitability. The figures cited by Manager Magazin, however, represent a stark acceleration of those planned job cuts.

The upshot: Locally, of course, the question is if this news will impact the future of the planned Volkswagen-backed PowerCo electric vehicle battery plant in St. Thomas. Late last year, Volkswagen significantly reduced its five-year budget for the PowerCo division (it encompasses three planned production sites, one in Germany, one in Spain and St. Thomas), and in April, Volkswagen announced it would not make electric ID.4 vehicles at a plant in Tennessee, one of two assembly plants PowerCo St. Thomas was to supply. At the time, company officials said the cancellation would not impact the St. Thomas facility. Whether or not this restructuring changes that stance is not yet clear, but eliminating 100,000 jobs from an automotive giant that employs roughly 657,000 people underscores the scale of the transformation the VW Group appears ready to undertake. Probably the chief development here for the St. Thomas facility is the planned investment reduction — much of that spending had been earmarked for software, batteries and the next generation of electric models. This will be a development to keep an eye on over the coming weeks as the impact of these cuts becomes clearer.

Read more: CNN | The Globe and Mail

AEON Canada breaks ground on $20M Innovation Park manufacturing facility

Cabinet manufacturer AEON Canada announced this week it has broken ground on a new 90,000-square-foot, $20-million manufacturing facility on Innovation Drive. “We’re very excited,” said owner Jason Zang (pictured), a Western grad and London Inc. 20 Under 40 recipient who founded the company in 2018. The new plant could create up to 50 additional jobs, and will aim to onshore manufacturing of cabinet components, rather than simply assembling them here, which it currently does out of its facility on Castleton Road. Producing ready-to-assemble and pre-assembled cabinets for builders, homeowners and contractors, Zang said the company supplies a “lot of different clients,” but mainly sells to cabinetry dealers across the country. Zang added at the announcement that he hopes the plant could expand to around 100 workers over the coming years.

The upshot: It’s a good news story of homegrown growth economic development, with Zang being a Western grad who chose to stick around after graduating to start the company. This kind of story certainly is catnip to the city’s economic development officials — the London Economic Development Corp.’s Kapil Lakhotia was on hand, and said it was “great we’re retaining talent here,” while Mayor Josh Morgan praised Zang, saying, “What you’re building here is amazing. You are growing a successful business and it’s really exciting for our city.” Zang’s business partner, Euphy Liu, is also a London Inc. 20 Under 40 recipient, receiving the award earlier this year. “What I’m most proud of isn’t just the growth,” she said in her winner’s interview, “but creating a business that’s known for reliability, speed and design-forward thinking — and building a team that genuinely cares about doing things well and delivering quality products.” 

Read more: London Free Press

BBB SW Ontario opens downtown ‘Trust Centre’

The Southwestern Ontario chapter of the Better Business Bureau (BBB SW Ontario) has moved its offices, opening new ‘Trust Centre’ in London’s core at 495 Richmond Street, a Sifton-owned property. According to the BBB, the new facility will “serve as BBB’s regional home and a gathering place for businesses, consumers and community partners,” and will include meeting and coworking spaces for businesses that are accredited with the BBB. “For us, this isn’t simply a move downtown,” said Jennifer Matthews, CEO of BBB SW Ontario (pictured, second from right). “We want our accredited businesses to use this space, hold meetings here, build relationships here and become more engaged in the core. The more businesses investing their time, energy and presence downtown, the stronger and more vibrant our city becomes.”

The upshot: As Matthews points out, the move to Richmond Row is a deliberate investment in the city’s core on behalf of the non-profit organization, which sets standards for ethical business practices and reports on instances of deceptive or unethical operation. “Organizations can either stand back and watch, or they can choose to participate. We chose to participate,” Matthews said in a press release. “Businesses that have been investing in London’s future for generations. Trust grows through connection, and that’s exactly what we hope this space will help create.” The BBB’s relationship with Sifton looks to have played a part in making this happen as well — Matthews said that taking a space owned by Sifton, one of the first businesses to gain accreditation back in 1983 (right after the BBB started operating in London) was an “intentional” choice. “As an organization that encourages consumers and businesses to seek out trusted, accredited companies, we believe we should hold ourselves to the same standard,” Matthews said. 

Read more: Downtown London

Cascades Casino London launches

Work on a $50-million renovation project to create Cascades Casino London at Western Fair District is largely complete, Gateway Casinos & Entertainment Limited announced this week. The new Cascades Casino (formerly called Gateway Casinos) began work on the project more than two years ago, which sees the casino expanded from 70,000 to 84,000 square feet. “We are thrilled to unveil these exciting enhancements and welcome guests back to a refreshed and expanded entertainment destination,” said casino general manager Darcy Romanin. The expanded casino has added around 80 new staff, and has significantly built out its bar and restaurant offerings. “These investments reflect our ongoing commitment to providing exceptional experiences for our guests,” Romanin said. An official ribbon-cutting ceremony is planned for a few weeks from now. Also on Wednesday, the city announced the receipt of over $5 million from its partnership with the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, generated from the London casino (through the Municipality Contribution Agreement) for the 2025-2026 fiscal year.

The upshot: With the renovated casino project now more or less complete, one thing we’ll be watching is how successful it is at forging links with other east-end hospitality businesses — the big ones being the Hard Rock Hotel and 100 Kellogg Lane — and whether all three are able to row in the same direction. “It’s definitely something that we are looking at, to have that promotion with the hotel there, and really highlight both of our properties to the guests that are coming to London,” Romanin told CTV News London. He said that he would like to see more of a walkable link between the Western Fair District and 100 Kellogg, creating a more cohesive entertainment district in the east end of the core. “It would be great if we could do that, to definitely see some sort of a link here in this district, connecting everything that is available here.” 

Read more: CTV News London | Gateway Casinos & Entertainment

City’s third office-to-residential project opens

A third office-to-residential conversion project officially opened on Thursday. The Richmond Square development at 685 Richmond Street is a Farhi Holdings Corp. project that converted the previously vacant office building to 41 new residential units, which began leasing earlier this month. The project received a lot of praise from Shmuel Farhi himself, who said it was “a pleasure to do business in London,” and praised city staff. “The people who work at city hall should be commended, not only for helping us, but helping a lot of other organizations make things happen,” he told The London Free Press. Mayor Josh Morgan, keen to promote the office-to-residential conversions (which have been slow to get off the ground since he made such conversions a key part of his mayoral ambitions), added, “this just shows that you can take vacant, unused commercial office space and convert it into places for people to live,” and added there are “now 1,500 more units in the downtown than when we started this term” (though only a small portion of those are office conversions). The mayor also teased several other conversion projects in the works, though no announcements are being made on that front just yet.

The upshot: Farhi himself is showing some more interest in building housing downtown (even if the Farhi-linked project at York and Colborne, a 38-storey tower proposal, has had a rough time getting off the ground). Farhi now says he wants to build 300 more units downtown, comprised of a mix of new builds and office conversion projects — one of which is the old Rexall building at Richmond and Dundas, which has changed hands over a couple of times over the last few years (“We’re going to do something great with it,” Farhi says.) There was some speculation from MP Peter Fragiskatos on what the future of housing incentive funding might be for cities like London, which have leaned hard into programs being pushed from upper levels of government. The Housing Accelerator Fund, which has helped many of London’s supply pushes, expires in 2027-28, but there will be many who would like to see it extended. “We will see,” is what Fragiskatos had to say on that. “But certainly my message back to the federal government, and specifically those working on housing policy, is we’ve had some success in London.” 

Read more: London Free Press

Western University outlines vision for future growth

Western’s board of governors has voted to approve a new Campus Development Strategy that aims, among other things, to reduce vehicle traffic through the university and set a direction for the physical growth of the institution over the coming years. The new campus development strategy is also the first planning document to incorporate the land formerly known as Brescia University College, land the campus plan says “are largely undeveloped and provide a significant strategic opportunity to short- and long-term growth.” The school is signalling it wants to make more use of this West Campus land as it grows, and the planning document focuses heavily on building links between it and the rest of campus. “We’re looking for strategic and thoughtful opportunities to grow and develop across campus lands,” said Lynn Logan, Western’s vice-president of operations and finance, speaking to Western News. “This is a broad vision that allows for immediate next steps as well as ongoing, incremental work to shape our future space.”

The upshot: Much of the attention the campus plan got in early May, when the draft version was first released, was focused on the plans to limit traffic on campus (particularly cut-through traffic), and the plans to twin the bridge over the Thames River on University Drive. Nothing has really changed over the draft consultation period in that regard, and the university still seems intent on trying to improve the pedestrian infrastructure on the now-expanded campus. “We want everyone on our campus to be able to move around easily and safely,” Logan said. “We need to build a pedestrian-priority core to protect and empower our students, staff and faculty to get around using green methods like walking and cycling.” The university said it is pursuing what it calls a “hill to hill, river to creek” strategy: trying to build a larger circuit of infrastructure that links UC Hill with the West Campus Hill (the big, picturesque hill leading up to Brescia), and from the Thames River to Medway Creek. “We want to build on Western’s natural beauty and continue our legacy of stewarding this land. Our new strategies will ensure we have a safe and beautiful campus that attracts world-class learners and researchers,” Logan said. 

Read more: Western News

Dispatch: June 26, 2026

A summary of recent business appointments and announcements, plus event listings for the upcoming week.

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