The Redcap&Truss Deal Brief – August 2026

Insights for owners of privately held businesses in Western Canada

We are excited to be launching the inaugural edition of Deal Brief.  This newsletter is intended for owners and entrepreneurs of manufacturing, oilfield services, and industrial businesses in Western Canada (but hopefully also appeal to a wider audience).   It focuses on one goal: helping owners create value in their business.  We want to do that by introducing news, topics and ideas that they may not otherwise have exposure to, particularly as it relates to selling a business.  Over the coming editions we want to bring you market news and insights that you may have missed and highlight topics related to preparing for a business exit.  We hope you enjoy it.

The Western Canadian M&A Lens

What buyers, sellers and investors are doing across Western Canada.

The most active buyers we have seen through the first half of the year are a split between strategic consolidators seeking scale/technical capability and diversified industrials adding energy-adjacent capabilities. STEP Energy Services’ merger with Sanjel Energy Services (Link) is a marquee example, combining coiled tubing, fracturing and cementing capabilities to create one of Canada’s largest oilfield service platforms. GFL Environmental’s acquisition of Calgary-based H2Oil Energy, and TerraVest Industries’ purchase of Calgary manufacturer Superior Pressure Vessels (Link), show non-traditional and public industrial acquirers entering the space to bolt on capacity. Private equity and family-office-backed platforms are also active (e.g., Tricor Pacific Capital’s acquisition of welding-consumables supplier Arctec Alloys  (Link), but are being more cautious as they wait to see the interplay between Canada and the United States with CUSMA/USMCA and any tariff impacts.  Broadly what we are hearing from financial buyers is that there is a decent amount of deal flow, but the quality of opportunities is not as strong as it’s been in recent years.

Sellers remain cautiously optimistic as they wait for how the impact of the Canadian Government’s recent announcements on LNG and Pipeline investments and BC Infrastructure (e.g., Port of Vancouver’s Roberts Bank terminal and George Massey Tunnel replacement project) filter through the broader economy.

Plainly put, we are seeing an increase in discussions and reach-outs from both strategic and financial buyers, but broadly buyers remain cautious as they weigh the macro environment.

Exit Ready

Practical advice to increase value before selling your business.

The best time to prepare a business for sale is well before an owner intends to sell it — buyers reward businesses that already look ready, not businesses scrambling to appear ready under deadline pressure. For an oilfield services or industrial owner, this matters because sale processes in these sectors can move on buyer timelines shaped by commodity cycles and drilling activity; a business caught unprepared when a strategic buyer or PE platform comes calling during a hot cycle can lose the window entirely.

Treating “sale readiness” as a permanent operating discipline rather than a pre-sale sprint compounds value over years. Owners should conduct an annual internal readiness review — clean books, documented processes, reduced key-person dependency — even with no sale planned, so the business is always priced for the market rather than priced for its current state of disorganization.

Tactically, owners can start with a simple one-page “readiness scorecard” reviewed each January covering financial cleanliness, customer concentration, management depth, and documented SOPs for field operations or shop-floor processes. Scoring the business honestly each year, rather than waiting for a banker to do it during due diligence, turns readiness into muscle memory.  Need help with this – we would be happy to jump on a call and point you in the right direction.  

Building Enterprise Value

The decisions that make businesses more valuable.

Being as this is the inaugural edition of the Deal Brief, we are starting this section with a high-level overview of why its important to be thinking about the sale of your business months, if not years, ahead of when you intend to sell.  What we like about all the ideas we want to share is that they are not only important for a sale, but actually increase the value of your company to you, today! Even if you hold onto the business for the next 20 years, these ideas will help you put more money in your pocket and bring more balance to your life.

Our first topic may surprise Founders, but our first recommendation is to build a real board or more likely, an advisory group.  Most privately held manufacturers, oilfield services and industrial companies operate with no formal governance beyond the owner’s own judgment, even as the business grows past the size where informal decision-making is sustainable. An advisory board (or formal board of directors) of three or four outside voices that meet quarterly will bring discipline, external perspective, and accountability that pure owner-run companies lack.

This matters because buyers and lenders alike interpret governance as a proxy for management maturity, and companies with functioning boards tend to make better capital allocation and hiring decisions long before any transaction is on the table. Governance also reduces single-point-of-failure risk if an owner is unexpectedly unavailable.

The near-term action: recruit two to three outside advisors — a retired industry executive, an accountant, and a peer business owner — and commit to a structured quarterly meeting with a real agenda covering financial performance, key risks, and strategic decisions, not just informal check-ins.  

What Owners Need to Know

Tax, regulation, financing and AI developments affecting private businesses.

SR&ED just got a lot more generous — and the claim ceiling jumped to $6 million. Bill C-15, which received Royal Assent March 26, 2026, expanded the Scientific Research & Experimental Development program: the enhanced 35% credit rate now applies to a larger expenditure pool, and the annual expenditure limit for the enhanced rate rose to $6 million. Did you know: Manufacturers experimenting with process improvements — new welding techniques, automation retrofits, custom tooling, material substitution testing — often qualify for SR&ED even without a formal “R&D department,” and the 90%+ approval rate for well-documented claims suggests many eligible industrial claimants still aren’t applying.

Alberta Energy Regulator quietly overhauled oilfield waste rules effective June 2026.  New editions of Directive 058 (oilfield waste management) and Directive 047 (waste reporting) took effect June 4, 2026, along with updated Petrinex waste/reporting codes, a new Oilfield Waste Disposition Form, and a companion guide (Manual 034); the old digital submission directive (Directive 030) was rescinded entirely. Did you know: Because reporting codes changed in Petrinex, any oilfield services company still using old code mappings in their waste tracking or third-party software risks reporting errors that could trigger compliance flags — worth a quick systems check with whoever handles AER reporting.

Closing Note

We hope you both enjoyed and found this inaugural edition of Deal Brief helpful.  We would welcome any feedback you may have on it.  As a reminder, Redcap&Truss is a Calgary-based boutique M&A advisory firm that advises entrepreneurs on the sale or growth of their businesses.  Redcap&Truss focuses on manufacturing, oilfield services and other industrial business in Western Canada, with our typical client having revenues between roughly $15 million and $200 million and EBITDA above $3 million. Please connect with us on LinkedIn or via our website at www.redcapandtruss.com.