Some people might see a canceled flight to Edmonton, Alberta, in a mid-December blizzard as a godsend. The team at Brookfield’s private equity group did not.

The firm was in talks with Gregg Distributors, a regional industrial maintenance, repair, and operations supply company founded in 1968 and owned by its founding family and its employees. A snowstorm socked Alberta and the company’s headquarters city of Edmonton as it was holding management presentations.

“I think a lot of folks would have packed it in at that point” and rescheduled after the holiday season, said Erson Olivan, a managing partner in Brookfield’s private equity group, which has around USD 166bn in assets under management (AUM).

Instead, Olivan said, Brookfield scrambled to reschedule as soon as possible, and the team arrived in Edmonton a few days before Christmas, when temperatures neared negative 40 degrees with the wind chill.

“I think that went a long way in terms of building a relationship with the family,” Olivan said. “They knew we very much took a roll-up-your-sleeves type approach.”

Brookfield eventually signed a deal in late July to acquire Gregg Distributors at an announced CAD 1.6bn (USD 1.15bn) valuation, with its current owners retaining a “meaningful ownership stake,” according to a press release. The acquisition is set to close by the end of 2026, the release said.

Olivan declined to disclose further deal terms. He described the amount of leverage in the transaction as “modest.”

Because Brookfield’s PE strategy focuses on industrials and services, and Gregg Distributors’ business sits at the intersection of those, the asset had been on Brookfield’s radar for years, Olivan said.

“We just weren’t sure if or when an opportunity would come to potentially transact,” he said.

The company, family, and advisors reached out to Brookfield in 2025. They initially contacted potential acquirers through a process-style engagement, Olivan noted, but it later shifted to direct negotiations with Brookfield that lasted five or six months.

The company was looking for an operationally capable partner that understood the business and displayed an ability to continue its growth and take care of its employees, Olivan said.

On the other side, Brookfield knew the company and its customer service well as an investor in many of Gregg Distributors’ clients, Olivan added.

Brookfield made the investment from its sixth flagship PE fund, which closed in October 2023 on USD 12bn. The firm launched fundraising for Fund VII in September 2025 with a USD 12.5bn target.

Growth strategy

Gregg Distributors has grown revenue in by mid- to high-single-digit percentage points each year, and Brookfield expects to help continue that trajectory organically with “things around the edges” such as commercial execution, procurement, and organizational design, Olivan said. The company sells a broad range of essential products to a sticky customer base, so expanding its offerings is not necessary for growth, he said.

The company could enter new regions in Western Canada, as it has done previously, Olivan noted. “We want to continue a strong focus on capital allocation, and then growing where the demand is in a methodical, thoughtful way.”

Gregg Distributors would be opportunistic about inorganic growth, Olivan said. An eastward expansion could be aided by M&A, for example, but there is no timeline or set plans for such a strategy, he said.

Within Western Canada, add-ons would be possible, but he noted that preserving the company’s culture and position as a market leader there is paramount. “It would have to fit what the core strategy is and if it makes sense to do because it’s what the customers want.”