Nova Scotia billionaire John Risley is joining forces with Jim Balsillie and a group of investors to repatriate the maker of the Canadarm, the iconic Canadian robotic arm used in space.   

Northern Private Capital, a Toronto-based investment firm led by Risley and Andrew Lapham, said Monday it had signed a deal to buy MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. from U.S. satellite imagery firm Maxar Technologies.  

The billion-dollar deal will see MDA’s corporate headquarters return to Canada. The company has 1,900 employees in six offices across the country — including in Dartmouth — and one in the U.K.  

Risley said he’s proud the company — which started in the basement of a Vancouver home half a century ago — will once again be in Canadian hands.  

“Like every Canadian, I knew about Canadarm and its role in the space game,” the co-founder of seafood giant Clearwater Fine Foods said in an interview.  
“It’s a very cool company.”  

MDA makes defence and maritime systems, radar geospatial imagery, space robotics, satellite antennas and communication subsystems. 

“Like every Canadian, I knew about Canadarm and its role in the space game. It’s a very cool company.”

– John Risley

The Halifax businessman described walking into the company’s facility in Brampton, Ont., where he saw a next-generation Mars Rover slated to traverse the red planet next year. 

“There aren’t too many places you walk in the door and see something as crazy as that,” Risley said.  

But the entrepreneur said it was the company’s team — not just its technology — that piqued his interest.   

“We’re very much people investors,” he said. “We don’t consider ourselves to be experts in anything, so we’re always very heavily influenced by the quality of management teams.” 

Risley met Mike Greenley, the president of MDA, in late October. 

“I was very impressed by him,” he said. “He wanted to find a Canadian owner for the business … that’s what opened the door and started the process.” 

Risley said he’s worked non-stop on the deal for the last two months. The purchase is expected to close in 2020 following regulatory approval. 

The acquisition is being financed with a combination of equity and debt.   

In addition to NPC and its partners, leading investors include Jim Balsillie, the former chairman and co-CEO of BlackBerry Ltd. 

“We’re delighted to attract a guy like him to the table,” Risley said, noting that Balsillie’s expertise in intellectual property and technology will be helpful.  

“He will be on our board and what I would call an active investor, but none of us are going to run the business,” he said. “That’s the job of management.” 

Senvest Capital along with funds managed by Senvest Management are also investing in the deal.  

Debt is being provided by Scotiabank, Bank of Montreal, PointNorth Capital and Canso Investment Counsel. NPC is also being advised by BMO Capital Markets and Scotiabank.  

As for where the company’s head office will be located, Risley said senior management is based in Brampton, making it the “de facto” head office.  

“I’m sure it will probably stay where it is,” he said, though he noted that the outfit’s largest operations are in Montreal.  

Risley said it’s expected to be business-as-usual for the company’s employees — including the roughly 105 located in Dartmouth. 

The firm’s Nova Scotia office is working on the Canadian surface combatant ships being built by Irving Shipbuilding. 

Risley said MDA is a subcontractor to Lockheed Martin Canada, helping supply a new state-of-the-art radar system and sophisticated naval warfare package. 

“The company is very much at the forefront of working with Lockheed Martin to develop these systems,” he said, suggesting there may be an opportunity to sell the systems to the U.S. navy in the future. 

Maxar’s shares were up 16.2 per cent in premarket trading. The company will retain its U.S.-based space robotics division, which is responsible for developing the robotic hardware used in NASA’s Mars 2020 rover.  

“This transaction combined with the recently completed sale of real estate in Palo Alto reduces Maxar’s overall debt by more than $1 billion,” Maxar’s chief financial officer Biggs Porter said.

As of September, Maxar had a total debt of $3.1 billion. Reuters first reported in June that Maxar was exploring sale of its space robotics business. 

MDA, which has helped construct part of the International Space Station, will operate as a stand-alone company within NPC’s portfolio following the transaction. 

With files from Reuters  

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