Business View Magazine | March 2019

37 we had three different manufacturing sites – British Columbia, Ontario, and Chandler. Through our lean manufacturing transformation in 2005, we ended up integrating the B.C. facility and the Ontario facility into the Chandler facility here.” Johnson continues the company’s corporate saga: “At the corporate level, MAAX was sold to a group of equity investors in 2003-04, and from there, they went from being a publicly-traded company to a privately-held company.We ran with them until 2008, when all of MAAX was purchased by a company called Brookfield, which is another private equity group based out of Canada. Brook- field separated the spa division from the bath division and created two separate companies. “As a stand-alone company under Brookfield, we acquired a company called Vita Spa out of Flori- da in 2009, and moved their manufacturing from Florida to here in Arizona. In December 2014, we acquired a company called L.A. Spas and we moved the manufacturing from that facility in Anaheim into the facility in Chandler.We contin- ued to be under Brookfield until January 2017, when both MAAX Spas and MAAX Bath were acquired by the American Bath Group, who owns us today.We’re still known as MAAX Spas, but we are now a division of American Bath Group.” crating and specialty wood packaging • groove stock shrink and paper wrap • metal and poly banding • corner protectors • CNC routing • design • cut-to-size • resaw NATIONAL • RELIABLE • SOLUTIONS 480.961.0833 UFPChandler.com