Building a 50-year legacy in Winnipeg

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[00:00] SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Canada's Podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_01: Hello, I'm Mario Tonigus,
[00:07] SPEAKER_01: the managing editor of Canada's Podcast.
[00:10] SPEAKER_01: Joining me today on Winnipeg's Podcast is Sandy Chinoeman,
[00:14] SPEAKER_01: who is president of Chindico based in Winnipeg.
[00:17] SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for joining us today, Sandy.
[00:20] SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me, Mario.
[00:22] SPEAKER_01: All right, so you folks are celebrating an important year for the company.
[00:30] SPEAKER_01: 50 years in business, tell me a little bit about that,
[00:34] SPEAKER_01: how it started and we'll go from there, Sandy.
[00:39] SPEAKER_02: Well, we started in Portisville, Perry.
[00:41] SPEAKER_02: That's part way to Calgary for Winnipeg,
[00:44] SPEAKER_02: but an hour into the 15 hour trip.
[00:51] SPEAKER_02: And operated in Agra business.
[00:54] SPEAKER_02: My parents were in the,
[00:57] SPEAKER_02: farming and livestock and abattoir and grocery store,
[01:01] SPEAKER_02: quarter grocery store.
[01:03] SPEAKER_02: So they sure taught us how to work.
[01:06] SPEAKER_02: And we listened.
[01:08] SPEAKER_02: And I started Chindico sometime after 73,
[01:14] SPEAKER_02: really officially in 1975.
[01:18] SPEAKER_02: And while I was at the University of Manitoba,
[01:22] SPEAKER_02: my brother joined me very shortly afterward.
[01:26] SPEAKER_02: And very important cog in the wheel that makes us Chindico.
[01:33] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so maybe just give us a little bit of a rundown
[01:37] SPEAKER_01: of what Chindico is and what you guys do.
[01:41] SPEAKER_02: Chindico, first of all,
[01:44] SPEAKER_02: primarily started off as a commercial real estate broker,
[01:49] SPEAKER_02: property manager, asset manager,
[01:52] SPEAKER_02: private equity fund and development.
[01:58] SPEAKER_02: And by development,
[02:00] SPEAKER_02: we've basically done all the food categories.
[02:05] SPEAKER_02: Industrial, we're building an industrial park.
[02:08] SPEAKER_02: Retail, which is what we're known for,
[02:11] SPEAKER_02: which we've been in since 1975.
[02:15] SPEAKER_02: Personal storage with our storage bill operation.
[02:20] SPEAKER_02: Residential apartment buildings,
[02:22] SPEAKER_02: the residents on Taylor,
[02:23] SPEAKER_02: a joint venture with Ontario teachers to build 1500 units.
[02:29] SPEAKER_02: It's Polo Park.
[02:31] SPEAKER_02: We're entitling a lot of our lands for this kind of mixed use.
[02:37] SPEAKER_02: We opened this at our construction about a year and a half ago.
[02:42] SPEAKER_02: So we're able to self-perform and get a little more cost certainty
[02:47] SPEAKER_02: and attention to detail and quality.
[02:51] SPEAKER_02: If it's your own, you have the time to do that.
[02:55] SPEAKER_02: The commercial construction business in Manitoba is not very competitive.
[03:04] SPEAKER_02: There isn't enough performers in it.
[03:08] SPEAKER_02: But there's lots of work.
[03:11] SPEAKER_02: Lots of work.
[03:13] SPEAKER_02: And so we're in the acquisition mode.
[03:18] SPEAKER_02: Our funds for acquiring and repositioning assets.
[03:23] SPEAKER_02: We've got a lot of grocery and crude assets and a couple more on the way.
[03:29] SPEAKER_02: We're proud of the team that we've built.
[03:33] SPEAKER_02: The next generation.
[03:36] SPEAKER_02: The only next generation is my daughters in her third year of business school.
[03:42] SPEAKER_02: And she may come into the business in the future.
[03:48] SPEAKER_02: We're certainly making room for her.
[03:50] SPEAKER_02: We've got a fantastic, fantastic young, motivated staff from our CFO,
[04:02] SPEAKER_02: COO, CIO, General Counsel.
[04:07] SPEAKER_02: My wife, of course, is younger than I as well.
[04:12] SPEAKER_00: And it really works well.
[04:17] SPEAKER_00: Join our thriving community of like-minded individuals who share a passion for success and innovation.
[04:23] SPEAKER_00: Canada's podcast.com subscribe now.
[04:26] SPEAKER_01: Let's turn back the clock here 50 years ago.
[04:29] SPEAKER_01: What was the genesis for all this?
[04:32] SPEAKER_01: Why did you decide to start up this company?
[04:38] SPEAKER_02: Well, I wanted to be in brokerage.
[04:39] SPEAKER_02: I thought it was an easier way to make a living than unloading 75 pound bags of potatoes and 100 pound bags of flour and sugar.
[04:51] SPEAKER_02: Because we used to have quite a big sugar business with all the stills in the country.
[04:58] SPEAKER_02: Distillers, I should say.
[05:01] SPEAKER_02: And so I thought it was going to be an easy way to make a living.
[05:07] SPEAKER_02: I didn't think the work was going to be that hard.
[05:09] SPEAKER_02: It turns out it was because you don't close the store when you're in real estate.
[05:15] SPEAKER_02: It's 24-7.
[05:17] SPEAKER_02: I had a difficult time really having credibility in brokerage.
[05:22] SPEAKER_02: So I started to buy the odd site and renovate the odd site at the same time.
[05:28] SPEAKER_02: And then moved to Winnipeg.
[05:31] SPEAKER_02: And it just kind of grew organically.
[05:36] SPEAKER_02: I'd never had a high personal overhead.
[05:38] SPEAKER_02: I mean, I had a car, a pair of blue jeans, a cowboy hat.
[05:46] SPEAKER_02: And I and a sleep disorder so I could work all night and all day learning the business.
[05:54] SPEAKER_02: And I gravitated to retail because it was not the flavor of the month.
[05:59] SPEAKER_02: It was not the flavor of the decade.
[06:02] SPEAKER_02: There wasn't anyone really doing it.
[06:06] SPEAKER_02: Rents had been stagnant for more than a decade.
[06:10] SPEAKER_02: And there wasn't really much in a way of new product.
[06:14] SPEAKER_02: So I was able to establish an expertise.
[06:18] SPEAKER_02: I studied the CCIM program, which was very good for me to get me going.
[06:23] SPEAKER_02: And later became an instructor and then senior instructor.
[06:28] SPEAKER_02: And now a instructor emeritus.
[06:30] SPEAKER_02: But I spent 42 years as a faculty of the CCIM organization.
[06:34] SPEAKER_02: I credit that with a lot of our early successes for validation of what I was doing since I was working on my own.
[06:42] SPEAKER_02: And I didn't have any mentors.
[06:45] SPEAKER_02: The CCIM program provided that for me.
[06:49] SPEAKER_01: What does it take Sandy for a business to have the type of longevity that you had had?
[06:58] SPEAKER_02: Well, we don't spend more than we make.
[07:05] SPEAKER_02: We we invest carefully.
[07:09] SPEAKER_02: We pay all of our bills before they're due.
[07:13] SPEAKER_02: We have a reputation for that.
[07:17] SPEAKER_02: And we have time for everybody.
[07:20] SPEAKER_02: So we're not up on our high horse.
[07:24] SPEAKER_02: In any way, we have time for people.
[07:28] SPEAKER_02: We succeed by helping other people succeed.
[07:31] SPEAKER_02: And we're happy to do that.
[07:34] SPEAKER_02: Our palms don't sweat, I guess.
[07:36] SPEAKER_02: For the money.
[07:40] SPEAKER_02: And the money just seems to come sometimes more sometimes less.
[07:46] SPEAKER_02: But my brother and I are the last to get paid.
[07:50] SPEAKER_02: So there's 60 or 80 people there.
[07:53] SPEAKER_02: They will get paid first.
[07:55] SPEAKER_02: We get paid what's left.
[07:57] SPEAKER_02: And it's always been that way.
[08:00] SPEAKER_02: And allow we be that way.
[08:02] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[08:03] SPEAKER_01: What about where you do business?
[08:09] SPEAKER_01: More specifically in Winnipeg,
[08:11] SPEAKER_01: but generally in Manitoba,
[08:14] SPEAKER_01: what's the business environment like for for an entrepreneur,
[08:18] SPEAKER_01: for a business owner in that?
[08:20] SPEAKER_02: Well, Winnipe,
[08:23] SPEAKER_02: Manitoba is a slow economy.
[08:26] SPEAKER_02: He doesn't compare to what we see and Saskatchewan Alberta and V.C.
[08:30] SPEAKER_02: Or Ontario,
[08:33] SPEAKER_02: in terms of the go-go nature of it, the boom bust.
[08:37] SPEAKER_02: It Wild along.
[08:39] SPEAKER_02: You have to be very careful.
[08:41] SPEAKER_02: And title-mancer critical to get always happen I don't know why.
[08:48] SPEAKER_02: They're the municipalities in the past.
[08:51] SPEAKER_02: and maybe that's changing now. I've been happier to give people a bigger tax bill
[08:56] SPEAKER_02: than build a bigger tax base. And we're all for building a bigger tax base and building the jobs.
[09:04] SPEAKER_02: We're very happy because every time we put up a building, hopefully somebody's in there working.
[09:11] SPEAKER_02: And earning a salary and paying taxes and growing our economy.
[09:15] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly. And what do you see the future as for the province and for Winnipeg?
[09:25] SPEAKER_02: Well, I think steady as she goes, we didn't capitalize on the
[09:34] SPEAKER_02: in the increasing immigration like other places did to get a lot of product built.
[09:41] SPEAKER_02: We're hoping we're seeking entitlements for about 8,000 units between Winnipeg,
[09:50] SPEAKER_02: Ottawa area and the GTA. So there we build in partnership with Maine and Maine, a different product,
[09:58] SPEAKER_02: concrete, port and place, high rise, mixed use. Here our mixed use is certainly not 40 stories high.
[10:10] SPEAKER_02: You know, we would say under 20. And we like to see the mixed use being adjacent.
[10:18] SPEAKER_02: We don't like to have pizza delivery on the main floor of an apartment that we want to get $2,500
[10:25] SPEAKER_02: a month for. Yeah, it can be just a two minute walk. That's just fine. And that's been working
[10:33] SPEAKER_02: out great. So we have anchored shopping centers, a lot of sobies, that type of development,
[10:42] SPEAKER_02: Walmart developments. And we're seeing retail added to that, residential added to that,
[10:52] SPEAKER_02: and even personal storage in the area. But we haven't put that into mixed use yet.
[10:57] SPEAKER_01: Okay, what about when you look at your own journey as being an entrepreneur,
[11:08] SPEAKER_01: what do you think helped you along the way in terms of achieving the success that you've achieved?
[11:17] SPEAKER_02: Well, watching my father, although it was in a different business,
[11:22] SPEAKER_02: but watching how he took care of people, neighbors, customers, if a small child took,
[11:30] SPEAKER_02: was carrying a pop bottle towards the store and the store was closed. And my dad saw him out of the
[11:37] SPEAKER_02: rear view mirror. He would back the truck up, open the door, and let the young person in to get
[11:46] SPEAKER_02: some candies for his pop bottle. So it just, it doesn't matter who you are, you're an important
[11:55] SPEAKER_02: person to us, you're in our market. We care about people, we care about the people we work with
[12:00] SPEAKER_00: deeply. And by and large, that has been a return to us. Stay ahead of the game with our
[12:09] SPEAKER_00: expert tips and strategies that will help your business thrive in a digital era.
[12:14] SPEAKER_00: Canada's podcast dot com subscribe now.
[12:17] SPEAKER_01: What's a future hold for for you and the company?
[12:22] SPEAKER_02: Well, getting growing the professional management, you know, always always going to be the
[12:28] SPEAKER_02: founder and more or less a chairman role. We're working on a lot of acquisitions. I think the
[12:35] SPEAKER_02: pipeline is about a quarter of a billion dollar acquisition pipeline. We'll see how many or if any
[12:44] SPEAKER_02: are all close, a development pipeline of about a billion and a half dollars, a largely residential
[12:55] SPEAKER_02: rental. We don't do condos. And and growing all of our businesses that we have. We
[13:05] SPEAKER_02: have a private equity business, we're reinvested in a couple of businesses like Trek City,
[13:11] SPEAKER_02: the delivery place and Canada Post gave us a good leg up for a couple of months around
[13:17] SPEAKER_02: Christmas time when they decided to take a break. And different businesses that help our businesses
[13:26] SPEAKER_02: were invested in. We're vertically integrated in the general construction and could vertically
[13:35] SPEAKER_02: integrate even further. F businesses have a difference in succession. We're all ears for that
[13:45] SPEAKER_02: to create partnerships and grow our Manitoba based business. Yeah, sounds like
[13:53] SPEAKER_01: retirement is nowhere near in the near future for you. Well, my daughters got, you know, at least
[14:01] SPEAKER_02: five years more education. That'll put me at 73. I have no need really to slow down because of the
[14:11] SPEAKER_02: good health and the good health of the people that we have working with us. We merged with
[14:22] SPEAKER_02: Alex. Alex is our CFO now. A CEO. A CEO. Sorry. All words I don't use very much. Alex is helping run things.
[14:35] SPEAKER_02: So I see the longevity of being able to slow down in the future. I have flown down in that I don't
[14:43] SPEAKER_02: have every day tasked to do. I'm very grateful for the team I have for doing those tasks. We're just
[14:51] SPEAKER_02: expanding our office space to the main floor of our building and construction will be ongoing in
[14:58] SPEAKER_02: about a month or two there. Kind of bringing everyone closer to home and building a place for
[15:04] SPEAKER_02: our construction equipment not too far down across the street. Everything we build we tend to lease up.
[15:14] SPEAKER_02: We have great locations that we've acquired 30 years ago and 25 years ago that have come into
[15:21] SPEAKER_02: their own that have taken decades to get entitlements unfortunately. But once we get those entitlements
[15:28] SPEAKER_02: we'll be able to build a tax base at all sides of the city in East Winnipeg where we have
[15:38] SPEAKER_02: rain reindeers right across from Codone and play shopping center. Why should those people not have
[15:49] SPEAKER_02: everything that Polo Park area has. So we want to build a product and living that everybody should
[16:00] SPEAKER_02: have the same thing in the minute and they shouldn't have to drive from one end to the other of our
[16:05] SPEAKER_02: city even though it's only 20 minutes when you grew up in Winnipeg or Portia Pirey 20 minutes a
[16:13] SPEAKER_02: long time you should have gone to the bathroom before you left. Switching gears here for a second
[16:20] SPEAKER_01: Sandy you know obviously running a business of your magnitude it can be time consuming.
[16:27] SPEAKER_01: Wonder what do you do to relax? Well not much. I spend a little time in Florida
[16:38] SPEAKER_02: watching people walking down the beach. I don't have too many hobbies.
[16:47] SPEAKER_02: I'm an accumulator of cars. Special interest cars. I was finally able to get a
[16:56] SPEAKER_02: 55 no mad that I wanted since 1970 and I got up two years ago. Quite a few cars.
[17:07] SPEAKER_02: You know the usual guys the cars guns knives. I'm a collector.
[17:13] SPEAKER_01: All right you'll have more time for that eventually. Eventually yes.
[17:19] SPEAKER_02: Unless Trudeau takes them all away from us. He hasn't got to the cars yet.
[17:23] SPEAKER_01: All right well super thanks so much. Sandy for joining us today.
[17:29] SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure to be hosted by Mario.
[17:34] SPEAKER_01: All right super fed. Thank you. That was Sandy Shindelben who was president of Shindico.
[17:39] SPEAKER_01: I'm Mario Toneguzi managing editor of Canada's podcast. Thanks for joining us today.