By Staff Reporter
ALBANY — For a lot of Western New York counties, the summer job of sealing and patching rural roads has come down to two bidders. New York’s attorney general says she has stopped them from becoming one.
Attorney General Letitia James announced Monday that Colas Inc., the U.S. arm of a French road-building giant, must sell three former Suit-Kote Corp. plants in Jamestown, Belmont and Buffalo before it can absorb Suit-Kote, its biggest regional competitor. Colas must also sell one of its own plants in Bloomsburg, Pa. All four have to go to a single buyer the state approves.
“No one should be forced to pay unfair prices for safe, well-maintained roads,” Ms. James said. “Protecting competition in this industry will ensure New Yorkers’ tax dollars are spent fairly and asphalt companies will continue to provide high-quality services to our towns and counties.”
Two bidders across nine counties
The attorney general’s office looked at “turnkey” pavement preservation. That’s the work, like chip sealing and other emulsion treatments, that stretches the life of a road without repaving it. A contractor supplies the liquid-asphalt emulsion, brings the crew and equipment, and applies it. Few county highway departments have the specialized crews or gear to do it themselves.
Investigators found that in Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Erie, Genesee, Livingston, Monroe, Niagara, Orleans and Wayne counties, plus the towns and villages that buy through county contracts, Colas and Suit-Kote “were often the only two regular bidders.” The office said the merger “threatened to eliminate this competition, giving Colas the power to demand higher prices and eliminating its incentive to invest in higher quality services and innovation.”
The settlement, a 13-page assurance of discontinuance (No. 26-065), says the office based its finding on “interviews, bidding data, and other information.” It concluded the deal “would result in a substantial lessening in competition” in parts of Central and Western New York. The companies don’t admit liability.
The federal government walked away. Two states didn’t.
The U.S. Justice Department also reviewed the deal and then ended its review, which would have let the merger go through without conditions, according to Ms. James’ office. New York and Pennsylvania kept investigating.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday went to federal court last week to argue the merger violates the Clayton Act, the Warren Times Observer reported. That filing pushed the companies to agree to the sale.
“This action will protect critical roadway infrastructure in central and western Pennsylvania, and for our neighbors to the north, and preserve the government funds that pay for it,” Mr. Sunday said in the New York announcement. “Antitrust work is essential as it ensures transactions between companies do not harm families, local economies, and consumers.”
What has to be sold, and when
The New York agreement lists the plants by address:
- Suit-Kote’s regional headquarters at 153 Jones & Gifford Ave. in Jamestown
- Its plant at 505 Como Park Blvd., listed with a Buffalo address
- Its site at 5628 Tuckers Corners Road in Belmont, Allegany County
- Colas’ plant at 1525 Millville Road in Bloomsburg, Pa.
The attorney general’s office says the plants are spread out to serve customers across Western and Central New York, with room to make “millions of gallons of asphalt emulsions each year.”
The sale runs on a deadline. Colas has 60 days after closing to market the plants. It then has 60 more days to sign a letter of intent and another 60 to close with a buyer the attorney general approves. That adds up to about six months, and the office can grant extensions. Colas has to report on its progress at least every 30 days.
The deal also sets up the buyer to actually compete:
- Colas must install an emulsion mill at Bloomsburg that can produce at least 4 million gallons a year, and pay up to $3 million for the build-out.
- If the buyer wants it, Colas must provide up to $3.5 million in pavement-preservation equipment at each of the Belmont and Bloomsburg sites.
- Colas can’t stop the buyer from hiring an experienced Belmont plant manager or a salesperson who knows the counties served from Suit-Kote’s Watkins Glen site.
A $450 million-plus deal for a 104-year-old family firm
Colas, a subsidiary of the French conglomerate Bouygues, agreed on Aug. 4, 2025, to buy all of Cortland-based Suit-Kote from the Suits family, who founded it in 1921, for more than $450 million. Colas’ announcement put Suit-Kote at more than 750 employees and about $500 million in yearly revenue. Colas already works in the region through its subsidiaries Barrett Industries and Midland Asphalt.
“Suit-Kote’s regional roots, its expertise in bitumen processing and its model combining production, logistics and implementation will provide lasting support for our development in the United States,” John Harrington, president of Colas Inc., said when the deal was announced.
Pierre Vanstoflegatte, Colas’ CEO, called it “a tangible illustration of our aim to invest in solid growth drivers that are as close as possible to the needs of the areas in which we operate.”
Suit-Kote said in a statement to customers that “Colas was hand picked due to how they conduct their business and treat their people.” It said it could not discuss future plans until the transaction closed.
What local governments should watch
Pavement preservation comes out of county and town highway budgets, which are funded by local taxes and state highway aid. The settlement keeps a second bidder in the market, but it doesn’t control prices. It also doesn’t say who the buyer will be. That matters, because the deal works only if the buyer can match Colas in the counties where the two companies used to compete head to head.
The attorney general’s office will vet the buyer, and the agreement lets it go back to court if Colas doesn’t follow through. County highway superintendents across the region may want to watch the next bidding season closely, whether a real second bidder shows up for chip-seal and paving-treatment contracts and what those bids cost compared with past years.
The Buffalo Chronicle has asked the attorney general’s office and Colas whether a buyer has been found and when the sale is expected to close.
Featured image: A chip seal crew at work on a rural highway. Photo by the Oregon Department of Transportation via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0, cropped.
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