Black Diamond Group Profile
Black Diamond Group Limited rents and sells modular space and workforce accommodation solutions. The company operates in Canada, the United States and Australia.
Segments
The company operates through two segments, Modular Space Solutions (MSS) and Workforce Solution (WFS).
MSS through its principal brands, BOXX Modular, Britco, and MPA, owns a large rental fleet of modular buildings of various types and sizes. Its network of local branches rent, sell, service, and provide ancillary products and services to a diverse customer base in the construction, industrial, education, financial, and government sectors. WFS through its principal brands, Black Diamond Camps and Black Diamond Energy Services, and through its approximate 50% equity participation in certain Indigenous limited partnerships, owns a large rental fleet of modular accommodation assets of all types and sizes and a fleet of liquid and solid containment assets. Its regional operating terminals rent, sell, service, and provide ancillary products and services, including turn-key operated camps to a wide array of customers in the resource, infrastructure, construction, disaster recovery, and education sectors.
MSS is a provider of modular buildings in Canada and the United States. This business unit has grown both organically through the procurement of new manufactured rental equipment and non-rental service offerings, and through the acquisition of existing fleet equipment. As at December 31, 2019, the MSS rental fleet consisted of 6,151 units of which 4,497 were located in Canada and 1,654 in the United States. Operating from branch offices in Langley, Nanaimo, Kelowna and Prince George, British Columbia; Edmonton and Calgary, Alberta; Regina, Saskatchewan; Toronto and Ottawa, Ontario; Los Angeles, California; Dallas and Houston, Texas; and Atlanta, Georgia, this business unit provides high quality, cost effective modular space solutions to a diversified client base, which includes general contractors, construction trades, real estate developers, manufacturers, commercial businesses, education providers, financial institutions, government agencies and various companies involved in the resource industry. The products include single wide office units, lavatories, storage units, large multi-unit office complexes, training (classroom) facilities, high security modular buildings, custom manufactured modular facilities and blast resistant structures. These products offer customers flexible and expedient solutions to meet their temporary and permanent workspace and storage needs. To provide customers with turnkey solutions, this business unit offers ancillary rental items, such as furniture and office equipment. In addition to rental, this business unit offers both new and used units for sale and provides delivery, installation, project management, disaster recovery facility program as well as ancillary products and services.
The MSS rental buildings consist of wood or steel framed structures mounted on either chassis with axles and running gear or on steel channel skids, and contain materials which are typical of conventional buildings, such as plywood sheathing, gypsum board, wood paneling, vinyl flooring, metal siding, and rubber membrane roofing. These units are typically equipped with heating and air conditioning, electrical panels and circuitry, plumbing as required, windows, doors, and hardware.
The WFS business unit also includes the Corporation’s wholly-owned subsidiary, LodgeLink, which operates a digital marketplace for business-to-business crew accommodation, travel, and logistics in North America. Black Diamond operates its two complementary business units in 21 strategic locations across Canada, the United States and Australia.
WFS provides customers with solutions for their workforce accommodation requirements and associated services. The WFS business unit consists of the previous business units of Black Diamond Camps and Lodging, Black Diamond Energy Services, and Black Diamond International and utilizes the Black Diamond Camps and Black Diamond Energy Services brand. The average rooms available for the year ended December 31, 2019 in the Corporation’s lodges was 1,063, and the total managed rooms was 2,995. WFS’ rental fleets for the year ended December 31, 2019 averaged 3,173 units for workforce housing accommodations, 618 units for wellsite accommodations and 2,442 units for surface equipment. The consolidated room count respect to WFS’ workforce accommodations fleet for the year ended December 31, 2019 in Canada, the United States and Australia were 9,783, 2,406 and 1,010, respectively.
WFS provides workforce housing and associated services primarily in western Canada to a client base which includes oil and natural gas exploration and development companies, mineral and metals mining and processing companies, large catering and food services providers, engineering and construction companies, drillers, general contractors, pipeline constructors, and municipal and provincial governments. WFS’ products include relocatable dormitories, kitchen/diner complexes, recreation facilities and supporting utility assets which offer customers flexible and expedient solutions to accommodating their workforce in remote locations where local accommodation infrastructure is either insufficient or non-existent. In addition to workforce housing rental units, this business unit offers both new and used units for sale and provides delivery, installation, project management and ancillary products and services. Through WFS, the Company also operates LodgeLink Inc. (LodgeLink), a digital marketplace for business-to-business crew accommodations, travel, and logistics in North America.
The WFS typical workforce housing rental equipment (units) consists of wood framed structures mounted on steel I-beam skids, and contains materials which are typical of conventional buildings, such as plywood sheathing, gypsum board, vinyl flooring, metal siding, and rubber membrane roofing. These units are typically equipped with heating and air conditioning, electrical panels and circuitry, plumbing as required, windows, doors and hardware. The units are generally fully furnished with bedroom, recreation amenities and/or cooking equipment.
WFS also provides turnkey lodging services, remote facility management and sophisticated supply chain management services to customers to improve efficiency of remote services. It operates five open lodges (Sunday Creek, Sunset Prairie Lodge, Horn River Lodge, Little Prairie Lodge and Smoky River Lodge) which provide lodging services to a variety of customers on a nondedicated basis. The leases, accommodation facilities and related infrastructure of the open lodges are owned by the company.
Small Format Workforce Accommodation and Energy Services
WFS also provides the rental of oilfield surface equipment and oilfield drilling accommodation equipment along with full installation and maintenance services from operating locations in Fort St. John, British Columbia; Grande Prairie, Alberta; Estevan, Saskatchewan; Fort Lupton, Colorado; Williston, North Dakota; Midland and Fort Worth, Texas. The business can be separated into the following two product types:
Wellsite Quarters and Drill Camps: are single and multi-unit complexes which are highly mobile and durable and which, when fully assembled, create a single building to house, feed and provide living amenities to work crews and support staff. These accommodation units relocate often and typically work on day rates which provide volatility to revenue streams. While these units are typically used for drill site accommodations, the company continues find other creative applications for these units. This segment also includes self-contained living quarters for engineers and geologists (commonly referred to as wellsite units or staff quarters) and single unit sleepers. Freestanding fleet units typically work on day rates and have a variety of applications both within and outside of the resource sector.
Oilfield Rentals: consists of various types of oilfield rental equipment used to support drilling, completion and production activities. This includes equipment specific to liquid and solid containment such as 400-barrel tanks, large format frac tanks, floc tanks, flare tanks, shale bins, environmental containment systems, fluids management and transfer equipment, as well as ancillary equipment such as light towers, matting, power generation and various related types of equipment.
Australia
WFS also rents and sells remote workforce housing and modular workspace solutions and provides associated services in Australia near the major centres of Sydney, Brisbane and Perth. The rental fleet assets are similar to assets, which the company operates in North America and are well-positioned in the resource-rich regions of Australia. WFS’ diverse customer base in Australia includes natural resource companies, building and construction companies, commercial and general industrial companies, public and private education and government. These customers are primarily located in the States of Queensland, Western Australia, New South Wales and Victoria, Australia and its larger customers operate primarily in the mining and natural resource development areas.
LodgeLink
LodgeLink focuses on innovative technology-enabled workforce travel services. LodgeLink aggregates available hotels and lodges in an online directory and allows customers to find and book crew travel and accommodations. The LodgeLink business focuses on applying technology to remove inefficiency from the travel management process for work crews. The platform has been tailor-made around the needs of work crews and saves customers time and money searching for accommodation, managing reservations, and provides consolidated invoicing and powerful reporting to better manage crew travel. In 2019, LodgeLink acquired a three-person travel agency to provide flights and other travel services to the company’s crew-based customers. As at December 31, 2019, LodgeLink had capacity of 115,670 rooms across 1,055 listed properties and over 443 corporations that have signed a master services agreement to use LodgeLink. In 2019, the marketplace handled 82,747 room nights of bookings.
Strategy
The key elements of the company’s strategy are to maintain a high-quality fleet in good condition; continue to grow its MSS rental fleet; continue to expand its principal operating business units geographically through the establishment of additional branches and the acquisition of additional fleet assets; expanded products and services; sales of new and used equipment; develop new markets; plans to continue its strategy of targeting acquisitions of businesses where those businesses complement the existing business and are accretive to shareholders; and grow by increasing the supply, demand, geography, and liquidity of its marketplace.
Sales, Distribution and Marketing
Black Diamond markets its rental assets, custom sales and ancillary products and services through in-house sales personnel, its website, social media, web campaigns and its digital marketplace.
Customers
Black Diamond’s customers include general contractors; engineering procurement construction companies; oil, natural gas and mineral exploration and production companies; pipeline constructors; food services providers (caterers); construction subtrades; industrial companies; drilling contractors; educational institutions; military agencies; financial institutions; utilities companies; oilfield services companies; as well as manufacturers.
History
Black Diamond Group Limited was founded in 2003. The company was incorporated in 2009.
