S&S Activewear (asi/84358), the promotional products industry’s third largest supplier, is expanding into Canada through an acquisition that will be its third since 2010.

Illinois-headquartered apparel provider S&S said late Wednesday that it has purchased Technosport Canada (asi/90703), a Montreal-based wholesale apparel firm that has a physical presence across Canada through distribution centers in Alberta, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec. Financial terms of the deal were not released.

Frank Myers, S&S’s chief operating and financial officer

“We identified Technosport as an opportunity to expand across the border,” said Frank Myers, S&S’s chief operating and financial officer. “We’re excited to inherit such a talented team and look forward to building on the success they’ve already achieved.”

S&S executives said Technosport’s strong distribution network and focus on providing retail brands made the company an attractive partner. Technosport’s leadership team will continue to operate the business alongside S&S. With S&S’s support, Technosport will be able to provide a wider range of apparel offerings to Canadian customers, executives said. S&S, which has collaborated with Technosport over the last decade, will also support its Canadian partner through streamlined operations.

“We’ve been friends with the S&S team for a very long-time, and chose them for this partnership, because like us, they are a family-owned business with the same company values," said Technosport President Luc Beauchamp, whose family has owned Technosport since 2002. The company’s roots stretch back to the 1970s. “Our employees and our customers have always been our number one priority – they are like family, and we’re confident that this new relationship is going to be a great opportunity for all of us.”

It’s been a busy year for S&S. In February, it relocated its West Coast operations to a new, larger 800,000-square-foot distribution center in Reno, NV. In September, the company expanded its Midwest presence with a new 750,000-square-foot LEED-certified distribution center in Lockport, IL.

This year’s activity is an extension of the aggressive growth S&S has engineered over the last decade. In that time, the company has grown its sales force 10 times over and expanded from being a well-positioned Midwest regional supplier into a national supplier with distribution centers across the U.S. The firm employs more than 1,800 people, and has total facility space of nearly 4 million square feet.

The expansion activity began to accelerate in 2010. That’s when S&S acquired California-based Americana Sportswear. A West Coast presence established, S&S looked east, purchasing EVA Sportswear in New Jersey in 2013 – a move that gave S&S a strong foothold in the heavily populated I-95 corridor that includes Boston, New York City, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. “We’re always looking for new ways to meet customers where they are,” said Myers. “And we’re gearing up for 2020 with that same philosophy in mind.”

With reported 2018 North American promotional product revenue of $722 million, S&S ranked third on Counselor’s latest list of the largest suppliers in promo. Its five-year average annual growth rate is 21.8%. Jeff Adams and Paul Rohr own S&S, which they bought in the late 1990s. The pair have been friends since college and had successful careers in banking and distribution before entering the promo space.