Orica, the global mining and infrastructure solutions provider, has announced that it has entered into a binding sale and purchase agreement with Vance Street Capital LLC (via VSC RST Holdco, LP) to acquire 100% of Canadian company Terra Insights (Terra) for C$505 million on a cash free, debt free enterprise value basis.
In more detail, Terra Insights includes RST Instruments, which supplies geotechnical, structural and geospatial monitoring solutions including inclinometers and piezometers; Measurand which covers geotechnical deformation monitoring with its ShapeArray inclinometers; 3vGeomatics which uses InSAR (radar) to monitor subsidence and geohazards; Syscom Instruments, which covers vibration and seismic monitoring using vibration monitors; and NavStar Geomatics which supplies vibration and seismic monitoring using GPS/GNSS. Terra solutions are widely used in mining, particularly for tailings dam monitoring and slope stability monitoring.
The acquisition is expected to be completed in H1 calendar year 2024, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. Orica Managing Director and CEO Sanjeev Gandhi said: “I am delighted to announce the acquisition of Terra today, a business that Orica has had a long-standing commercial relationship with for almost ten years. Terra is highly complementary to Orica Digital Solutions and our GroundProbe business, adding additional products and capability across the mining and civil infrastructure value chains. The acquisition allows Orica to offer a more complete geotechnical offering to customers as well as adding an established stream of recurring software revenue. This acquisition strongly aligns with our Digital Solutions strategy and growth in mining and infrastructure. We are excited about the medium to long term opportunities this will create for Orica.”
Mark Price, CEO of Terra said: “We are excited to partner with Orica for Terra Insight’s next chapter of growth. Given our strong working relationship with Orica for nearly a decade, this combination is a great next step to in the evolution of our end-to-end sensor and data delivery platform through working closely with Orica’s Digital Solutions and GroundProbe businesses. This is a level of collaboration that is global-minded and future-focused. Importantly, this transaction meaningfully enhances the solutions we can collectively provide to our valued customers, and expand geographically across the mining and civil infrastructure markets.”
This move significantly expands Orica’s geotechnical and structural capabilities to monitor critical assets. It also enables the deployment of GroundProbe’s deep domain expertise in geotechnical monitoring into the infrastructure and civil industries. Plus it increases tjhe geographical exposure and future diversification of Orica’s revenue – Terra has strong exposure to infrastructure and civil markets as well as safety offerings, expanding Orica’s growth beyond blasting. It also has a strong presence in attractive North America and European markets, contributing >75% of Terra’s group revenue. Terra also brings a rich group of talent with its staff.
It also allows Orica the opportunity to capture future growth in environmental monitoring such as GHG emissions, noise, vibration and dust monitoring via Terra’s data collection and visualisation software products. Plus in mining, data collection and monitoring is becoming increasingly automated, therefore there is a growing customer appetite for integrated solutions leveraging automation, data collection and analysis.