By some strange twist of fate, Regina was home to not one but two major corporate takeovers this year. One involved a Saskatchewan icon, whose grain elevators used to dot the landscape like Prairie sentinels.

The other involved a 51-year-old upstart; from humble beginnings, it became one of the most profitable steel companies in North America.

While the takeovers will impose changes on the respective workforces, Reginans are confident both Regina-based companies will have large presences in the city for years to come.

Of course, I’m referring to Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and Ipsco Inc. The Pool was the acquiring company of Agricore United, while Ipsco was acquired by Swedish steelmaker Svenskt Stal AB.

The Pool’s takeover bid came like a bolt out of the blue. Pool CEO Mayo Schmidt launched the unsolicited all-share offer for the much larger AU in November 2006, leading to a nine-month bidding war involving the Pool, AU and its Winnipeg-based “white knight,” James Richardson International.

Initially, the Pool’s all-share bid was rejected by AU’s board of directors as inadequate. The Pool continued to sweeten its offer, but AU preferred a pairing with JRI, the third-largest Canadian grain handler. AU, with $3 billion in annual revenue, and the Pool, with $1.6 billion in revenue, ranked one and two, respectively.

But Schmidt’s perseverance and cash — the Pool’s final all-cash offer of $20.50 was roughly twice the initial bid — won the day.

Schmidt, who saved the Pool from bankruptcy in 2003, would not give up his dream of turning the Pool into Canada’s largest grain-handling and agribusiness company.

“I don’t believe in impossible,” he said after the takeover. “I believe in circumstances, I believe in timing and I believe in effort. I refuse to accept anybody’s view that things are impossible to do.”

That could easily be the motto of Ipsco. From its modest start as Prairie Pipe Manufacturing Co. in 1956, through mergers and sheer moxie, Ipsco survived strikes, downturns in the oilpatch and attempts to put it out of business by its competitors.

In 1982, the company began its modern era under CEO Roger Phillips, who oversaw the construction of two steel mills in the U.S., and the acquisition of pipe and processing facilities across North America.

In 2002, David Sutherland, a 25-year company veteran and a native of Moose Jaw, Sask., took over the reins from Phillips, and Ipsco continued to go from strength to strength. By 2006, it had posted its fifth consecutive record profit and Sutherland was ranked as one of the top CEOs in Canada.

Such success attracts admirers and acquirers, and in the spring of 2006, Ipsco received its first inquiry about its potential sale. That was the first of five or six takeover offers Ipsco would receive over the next year or so. SSAB, one of the most profitable steel companies in Europe, made the successful bid of US$160 a share — twice what Ipsco shares traded at a couple of years earlier.

There are casualties in any takeover. Some senior managers didn’t make the cut, including Sutherland (whose feelings were assuaged by a US$31-million package).

And at AU’s Winnipeg head office, there were rumours of hundreds of employees being let go or transferred to Regina. There will be job losses because Schmidt wants to save $70 million-$90 million a year in “synergies” by 2009.

But Schmidt and SSAB CEO Olof Faxander both have stated the importance of the Regina operations to both firms. That’s no doubt a relief to Ipsco’s 1,000 employees at its Regina steel mill and pipe facilities, and to the Pool’s head-office staff of 350 in Regina. IE