ATCO Group | |
Formerly | Alberta Trailer Company |
Company type | Public |
TSX: ACO.X (Non-voting) [1] TSX: ACO.Y (Voting) [1] | |
Industry | Electricity generation and distribution, natural gas, construction, logistics |
Founded | 1947 |
Founders | S. Don Southern & Ron Southern |
Headquarters | Calgary, Alberta, Canada |
Key people | Nancy Southern (CEO) |
Number of employees | 7,500 (2022) |
Website | www |
ATCO Ltd., operating as the ATCO Group, is a publicly-traded Canadian engineering, logistics and energy holding company based in Calgary, Alberta. ATCO's subsidiaries include electric utilities, natural gas production and distribution companies, and construction companies.
ATCO focuses on the energy transition front, notably on the hydrogen front. [2]
The ATCO Group of Companies includes the following subsidiaries:
Canadian Utilities , with its subsidiaries:
ATCO Structures (manufactures, leases, and sells modular buildings;)
ATCO Frontec (workforce camp services, operational support, facilities management and disaster response)
ATCO was founded in 1947, by S. Don Southern who gave a minority stake to his son Ron Southern, under the name Alberta Trailer Hire, renting fifteen utility trailers in the Calgary area. [4] As the company's operations grew, they also began to sell trailers, first becoming the Alberta Trailer Company, then ATCO. By the early 1960s, the company had operations across North America and in Australia.
ATCO Industries Ltd. became a public company in March 1968, with shares traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange. During the 1970s, the company expanded into the natural gas and petroleum industries, and into the electricity industry in the 1980s.
In 2004, with the deregulation of the retail energy industry in Alberta, ATCO sold the retail operations of ATCO Gas and ATCO Electric to Direct Energy Marketing Ltd. (DEML) while ATCO Gas and ATCO Electric still operated as "distributors" (owning and operating the infrastructure that delivers natural gas or electricity in its service territories). As part of the sale to DEML, DEML contracted call center and billing services from ATCO I-Tek. In 2016, ATCO re-entered the retail energy industry in Alberta as ATCOenergy.
In 2018, ATCO acquired 40% of the shares in Neltume Ports, a South American port terminal operator.
In 2022, ATCO agreed to pay a fine after overcharging for work on a new transmission line. [5]
Southern Company is an American gas and electric utility holding company based in the Southern United States. It is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with executive offices also located in Birmingham, Alabama. The company is the second largest utility company in the U.S. in terms of customer base, as of 2021. Through its subsidiaries it serves 9 million gas and electric utility customers in 6 states. Southern Company's regulated regional electric utilities serve a 120,000-square-mile (310,000 km2) territory with 27,000 miles (43,000 km) of distribution lines.
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ATCO Electric Yukon, formerly Yukon Electrical Company Limited (YECL), is a private electrical utility based in Whitehorse, Yukon, serving most Yukon communities and Lower Post, British Columbia. The company, founded in 1901, is owned by ATCO of Alberta. Through mergers and acquisitions, Yukon Electrical extended to serve most communities in Yukon.
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AltaLink, L.P. is one of Canada's largest electricity transmission companies. Based in Alberta, AltaLink is responsible for the maintenance and operation of approximately 12,000 kilometres of transmission lines and 280 substations in Alberta. AltaLink is owned by Berkshire Hathaway Energy.