Caterpillar to shutter Toronto tunnel-boring machine plant
by Canadian Manufacturing Daily Staff
Bought Lovat, Inc. in 2008; says business no longer "strategic growth opportunity"
TORONTO—Heavy equipment maker Caterpillar, Inc. has announced plans to close a tunnel-boring machine plant in Toronto by the middle of next year.
Caterpillar, which bought Lovat, Inc. in 2008, will shutter its Caterpillar Tunneling Canada Corporation (CTCC) facility, due to it no longer representing “a strategic growth opportunity.”
“We continuously evaluate our strategic portfolio to ensure alignment with our long-term strategy and have concluded the tunneling business no longer fits that strategy,” Caterpillar spokesperson Stu Levenick said in a statement. “As a result, we have elected to exit the business.”
The purchase of Lovat five years ago was Caterpillar’s entry into the tunnel boring business.
Approximately 330 employees will be affected by the closure, which is expected to take place by mid-2014.
A company spokesperson says the employees are not unionized.
Caterpillar says current contracts, including one with the Ontario government’s Metrolinx light rail transit project in Toronto, will not be affected by the closure.
The decision to close the plant comes a little more than a year after the industrial equipment giant shuttered its Electro-Motive Diesel plant in London, Ont., putting about 500 people out of work.
