Four investors led by Sid Kerrigan, the former president of Brookfield Residential's Ontario division, have acquired Wingham, Ont.-based factory homebuilder Royal Homes, with plans to expand its presence and manufacturing capacity.

Royal is a long-time player in the sector, having produced thousands of finished homes that have been delivered to building sites across Ontario since 1971, servicing primarily small towns. Its stick-built, timber-framed products include bungalows, single-family homes, multiplexes and cottages.

The homes are built at Royal's 115,000-square-foot facility in Wingham, a community about 90 kilometres north of Kitchener in western Ontario.

The facility has the capacity of producing up to 700,000 square feet of homes per year – approximately 500 homes in Royal’s target size range.

Kerrigan does not plan to position Royal to "compete with conventional stick build, but we definitely have to supplement it,” he said in an interview with RENX Homes about the role he sees the company playing to help address the housing shortage in Ontario.

Factory-built housing, Kerrigan said, can introduce more supply to rural Ontario, which is suffering from the high cost of housing driven by limited supply and a construction labour shortage, just like the province’s largest cities.

Under new management, he aims to achieve this by growing Royal’s network of dealers, pushing for greater awareness of the brand and investing in its production.

Doing ‘something completely different’

An accountant by trade who was at the helm of Brookfield Residential's Ontario division for over 20 years, Kerrigan said he was looking to do “something completely different” after leaving the company in 2023. A tour of trailer park manufacturing sites showed him the scale and potential of mass producing housing.

“A typical site-built home is now approaching a year to construct,” he said. “Well, what if we could build a house in one to two weeks and deliver it to the customer the next month?”

This not only saves time, it saves money. Plus, a controlled factory environment is better for retaining and attracting labour in the construction sector, Kerrigan said.

Despite the benefits, he learned factory-built housing makes up less than one per cent of the market in Canada. So, his mission became to “figure out a way to bring manufactured housing at scale to Ontario.”

A colleague phoned Kerrigan in late 2024 to ask if he was interested in an opportunity. As it turned out, Royal’s owners were preparing to pass on the torch to new owners.

Intrigued, he toured its factory, learned about the company’s history and financials, and confirmed its reputation for high-quality builds.

Excited by its available capacity and potential for growth and profitability, he and three private investors pooled their resources to acquire Royal, with financing led by CIBC, the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), and BDC Capital.

Kerrigan declined to reveal financial details of the transaction, nor the names of the other partners. However, he did say his partners have backgrounds in industries such as manufacturing and capital financing.

The acquisition process started in November 2024 and closed in June. Royal’s former executive team will stay on as consultants.

Royal’s new strategy

As president, Kerrigan will look to pivot some of the company’s manufacturing toward repeatable, smaller, cost-efficient builds, as opposed to the custom homes it is currently best known for.

Expansion of the Wingham factory is critical to its growth plan.

While too early to discuss specifics such as how much money will be invested or how much the production capacity will grow, Kerrigan said Royal will look to add approximately 100 employees to work on the manufacturing line. A second factory is already being contemplated.

Rebuilding its sales network will also be key to the strategy. Kerrigan plans to re-invigorate the Royal brand and hit road shows across Ontario to secure more dealerships.

“Out team is very excited to now be overseeing a tremendous brand like Royal Homes and to take it to the next step,” he said.