Amalgam, as an alchemical mixture of metals. Fusion, they say in business.
Posted 8:00 am Updated 5:00 am
Anne-Marie Chagnon Jewelry acquired WellDUNN Jewelry. The two Montreal companies were founded by creative entrepreneurs, Anne-Marie Chagnon for the first, Dominique Dunn for the second.
Since closing the transaction at the end of February, the five members of wellDUNN have joined Anne-Marie Chagnon’s thirty employees in her huge workshop on Rue Casgrain.
Although now united, the two companies each retain their soul. Namely their respective designer, who continues to direct their own collections.
“We want to keep two very different brands. My idea is not to chagnore… well DUNN! ‘ says Anne-Marie Chagnon with a burst of laughter.
It was by no means striving to grow through acquisitions.
never seen
Surprisingly, the professional careers of the two jewelry designers had never crossed before.
However, Julien Proulx, co-owner of wellDUNN, had already met Anne-Marie’s brother, David Chagnon, managing director of the company, through the Grappe métropolitaine de la mode. He informed her of her intention to sell the company.
“With the pandemic, perhaps with the intention of starting a family, several factors meant that entrepreneurship became increasingly energy-intensive in the context in which it was carried out, explains Dominique Dunn. There was less and less motivation and we also wanted to free ourselves from certain administrative tasks. For us, the sale of the company was a couple and a business decision at the same time. »
“David suggested the idea to me,” says Anne-Marie Chagnon, who was immediately enthusiastic. “I love adventure. It was a springboard into the future for both brands. The two women met last fall. “It was: we sit down, we watch, do we understand each other, does it click? »
Click there was. “It was extremely quick, especially for a purchase of this kind. »
Because the two companies were more complementary than competitive.
young calling
Anne-Marie Chagnon founded her company 28 years ago. His calling goes back even further. “I could say it started in early childhood but the decision was made in CEGEP. That was when I had my first employee. »
She was 40. For ten years she designed collections for Cirque du Soleil, which sold them in its boutiques.
The design, manufacture and assembly are all carried out in its workshop, which is equipped with its own foundry. Anne-Marie Chagnon combines pewter, resin, glass and wood in arrangements that create so many vibrant small sculptures.
From initial ideas on paper to production, “It takes me a year to do a whole collection,” she says.
She’s creating “an alphabet, a new way of writing, and I’m going to say what story I want to write this year.”
With this alphabet, which is more hieroglyphic than phonetic, she and her team compose concrete words, sentences, and verses in the material.
The combination of shapes, materials and colors allows them to create between 1,500 and 2,000 different items (SKUs) each year.
Managing an SME that had up to 40 employees prior to the pandemic hasn’t clipped its creative wings.
“I come from a family of entrepreneurs and creative people,” she says. They were two things that were already united within the family. »
Her father owns a food machine shop. When she was younger, her mother had been a special effects makeup artist in the cinema.
The combination of entrepreneurship and creativity “is a matter of course for me. Creation is really my first passion. But I also really like starting the company. For me it belongs to the same area of creativity”.
However, as the company has grown, management has taken a prominent place.
“That’s why I went to my brother. Who was already a career in business strategy.
“We have separated the tasks. I was more on the creation and marketing side and he was on the management side, which was really good for me. »
Well done
WellDUNN has its origins in 2011 when Dominique Dunn, then just under 20 years old and still a student, started selling her own jewellery. Her spouse Julien Proulx joined her in 2017.
She designs filigree jewelery in gold and silver, which is made in her workshop.
PHOTO PASCAL RATTHÉ, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
jewelry design
“We felt that joining Anne-Marie Chagnon was the perfect perspective because we share the same values and spirit without competing,” notes the designer.
“The two brands have different target customers. I’d be more inclined to believe that WellDUNN is 20-40 years old, while Anne-Marie Chagnon might be more like 40-60 years old. It’s very complementary. »
A weld between two subject areas
With the acquisition of wellDUNN, Anne-Marie Chagnon acquires a whole new field of expertise… and consequently opens up a whole new field of creation.
“I haven’t worked with silver or gold, which means I did a lot of soldering,” she says. That’s one of Dominique’s great strengths. She makes jewelry, she offers jewelry in solid gold and silver vermeil, which means gold plated. »
“In this acquisition,” she adds, “it was important that there was also mutuality in terms of values: local manufacturing, creation, female leadership and independent retailers. »
This reciprocity didn’t take long to manifest.
A good start
The wellDUNN people moved in with Anne-Marie Chagnon on February 20th. It was a crucial but delicate step, the beginning of a long engagement, the moment to symbolically put the ring on your finger.
That morning, Anne-Marie Chagnon had made sure to put on earrings and a wellDUNN necklace. “Dominique arrived at the office and she had the same ones but hers in silver and mine in gold. We wore the same jewelry on our first official day together. »
A brilliant introduction.
5N Plus solar cells on the way to Jupiter
PHOTO IVANOH DEMERS, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
The European Space Agency’s mission to Jupiter, launched April 14 from French Guiana, has an important connection with Montreal-based company 5N Plus. The German subsidiary Azur Space Solar supplied the solar cells for the Juice probe, which will reach the moon Ganymede in 2034. The 85 m² solar panels are the largest ever built for an interplanetary spacecraft. 5N Plus, a global manufacturer of specialty semiconductors and high-performance alloys, emerged from the management buyout of the high-purity division of the mining company Noranda in the early 2000s and employs around 160 researchers and specialists in Montreal, as well as research and production centers in many countries in Europe, North America and Asia. 5N Plus acquired Azur Space in September 2021. It was previously the germanium supplier to the German company (no, it does not supply francium to France).
Altitude Sports is committed to ecology
PHOTO PROVIDED BY ALTITUDE SPORTS
The packages are loaded onto Ford E-Transit electric vans and trailers pulled by electric bikes.
Altitude Sports hits a peak in green delivery, promising to deliver 110,000 parcels in Montreal all-electrically by 2023. For this feat, this e-commerce titan is collaborating with young Montreal company Courant Plus, whose name doesn’t refer to sporty pedestrian couriers but to its electric vehicles. Deliveries are made within what Courant Plus calls a “green zone” where more than 60% of Montreal residents live. The packages are loaded onto Ford E-Transit electric vans and trailers pulled by electric bikes. Its protagonists calculate that the initiative will avoid the emission of around 45 tons of greenhouse gases in 2023. This service has been running for a year. Altitude Sports plans to expand it across Canada in the next few years. Founded in Montreal in 2019, Courant Plus aims to become Quebec’s first green transportation company. The delivery company took delivery of the first two Ford E-Transit electric pickups in Montreal in April 2022.
An indoor golf center doubles its area
PHOTO PROVIDED BY GOLFIN LÉVIS
Center of Excellence GolfIn Levis
Golfer Swagger or Verified Scorecard? With its recent expansion, the GolfIn Lévis Center of Excellence claims to have become the largest dedicated indoor golf center in Canada. The former Zone GolfIn Lévis has practically doubled in size this spring, going from 835 to 1,485 m² (from 9,000 to 16,000 ft²). This deployment is the result of a million dollar investment. The Lévis company, owned by Dominic Côté, its general manager, and André Champagne and Pierre Champagne, had only existed for two years. The expanded center has five different areas – boutique, workshop, lounge, master class… Its training area brings together 13 GolfIn simulators (the most technologically advanced in Canada, as they say, see warning above) manufactured by the Beauce company of the same name.
The number
11
Millions raised by skincare company Omy Laboratoires in an investment round led by Crédit Mutuel Capital to bring its products to the American market. Founded by Andrea Gomez and Rachelle Séguin, Omy employs 27 people. More soon.