HISTORIQUE

More than 20 years ago, the necessity of diversifying the regional industrial structure was a concern, for the senior management of RTA and other major companies of the region. Although they had a strong economic impact, the aluminium smelters, paper mills and other major actors needed to modernize in order to remain competitive, reducing at the sametime, the total number of direct and indirect jobs they brought to Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean.

Following this acknowledgement SOCCRENT, a 10 million dollar venture capital fund, was launched in 1986 with a 5 million dollar investment from Alcan which was completed with contributions from paper mills and business people of the region. The main objective of the fund was to create jobs.  

Ten years later, the funds had been doubled and entirely invested, and the initial job creation objectives were widely excceded.

In 1997, the SOCCRENT mission changed again because the profitability of the fund had surpassed the job creation. The success indicators of SOCCRENT changed from this moment on and job creation stopped being recorded.

In 1999, the new SOCCRENT mission allowed, the FSTQ (Fonds de solidarité des travailleurs du Québec) and the National Bank of Canada to join in, confirming the new mission by expanding the territory to the Quebec province.

Finally, in 2006, SOCCRENT became a “buy out” fund with the participation of Alcan, the FSTQ, Pluri-Capital (PCI) Inc., the National Bank of Canada and the Jonquière and Alma staff pension fund.