Assured Automotive forms eastern Ontario subsidiary with collision centre acquisitions

Assured Automotive of Toronto announced this week that it has formed a new company operating five auto collision repair centres in the Ottawa area.

On Oct. 1, Assured acquired Frank & Guy Auto Body Ltd., which was owned by Guy Cousineau, who is now vice president of operations-technical at Assured Ontario East Inc.

Assured Ontario East is now comprised of the three Frank & Guy locations and two Concordia Collision Centres garages. Including the five Ottawa locations, Assured now has a total of 43 locations in Ontario.

Concordia has been operating for nearly 50 years and Frank & Guy for more than 35 years, according to an Assured press release.

Assured is all one company, with a subsidiary for the Ottawa region, president and chief operating officer Tony Canade said in an interview.

“We own our own stores,” Canade said, meaning the garage managers are neither franchisees nor independent owners using the Assured banner. “We feel that the insurance companies will have some benefit to dealing with a multiple-store operator, a corporately-owned entity, as opposed to the traditional methods of customer care.”

Two of the garages, one a Concordia and the other a Frank & Guy, are on Cyrville Road, near Innes Rd. and Highway 417, less than half a kilometer apart.

“At this time we don’t plan on consolidating any of the locations” in Ottawa, Canade said. “The interesting part is those two locations have been competing for the better part of 35 years and now all of a sudden they are under the same ownership.”

The other two Frank & Guy locations are on Youville Dr. (about 15 kilometres east of downtown Ottawa, in the community Orleans) and on Bank St. at Alta Vista. The other Concordia location is in Bells Corners, about 14 kilometres west of the downtown core.

The president of Assured Ontario East will be Walter Grego and Don Strong will be vice-president of operations-administration.