Armtec leads in drainage and precast concrete solutions for
infrastructure and building construction markets
Canadian Design and Construction Report special feature
Founded in 1908 as Canada Ingot Iron, Armtec has a long
history of supplying products to the Canadian construction
market. Today, through 40 locations across the country,
Armtec has become one of Canada’s largest suppliers of
drainage and precast concrete solutions for infrastructure,
building construction, natural resource and agricultural seg-
ments. Matt Balfe, precast concrete national sales and market-
ing director, says the company started with a drainage
focus founded as Canada Ingot Iron and then changed its
name to Armco Drainage & Metal Products in 1931. “There
were a series of name and organizational changes after
that, including the change to Armco Drainage & Metal Prod-
ucts to Armtec in the late 90s, but the company remained
in steel and plastic with drainage as its core business.”
In 2004, Armtec became a publicly traded company
through an IPO (initial public offering) and by 2007 the com-
pany began making what would be a total of nine acquisi-
tions of precast concrete businesses stretching from B.C.

to Quebec. “Precast is complimentary to drainage in many
ways. Each of the companies we acquired and brought
under the Armtec umbrella had different core strengths and
different scopes of work and experience.”
In 2015 the company returned to being a private com-
pany, now owned by Brookfield Asset Management.

Balfe says the marriage of the companies Armtec ac-
quired included the retention of key client facing staff, many
of who today still remain from the legacy companies.

“We’re still growing, investing in equipment and talent, but
many of those key people remain, or have just recently re-
tired.” Today the company offers precast solutions in three
main segments: Infrastructure (including bridges, light rail
transit and marine structures); building construction (includ-
ing landscape products, electrical vaults, parking garages,
hollowcore and wall panels) and natural resources and en-
ergy (including trenches, utilidors and custom solutions).

“We have worked on projects ranging from parking
structures to long-term care facilities to providing custom
solutions for the natural resources and energy sectors. We
work with owners, engineers, architects and contractors to
ensure their project’s needs are met.”
Some of those needs include building code require-
ments. Balfe says precast lends itself well to the National
Energy Code of Canada for Buildings for its resilience, sus-
tainability and its inherent thermal properties. “We also
work closely with our external vendors to ensure we are
able to supply non-conductive ties and connectors to fur-
ther improve the thermal properties of our building enve-
lope solutions.”
Precast is also durable and adaptable, meeting other
specific needs, and the growing requirements for sustain-
ability. Armtec is a member of the Precast/Prestressed Con-
crete Institute (PCI), the Canadian Precast/ Prestressed
The Canadian Design and Construction Report — September 2016 – 31