Bringing Centigon into Roshel Group combines Roshel’s Canadian armoured vehicle manufacturing capabilities with Centigon’s industrial expertise in civilian armoured and law enforcement vehicles, heavy-duty truck cabs, ballistic glass and protection engineering across France, Mexico and Colombia.
BRAMPTON, Ontario and LAMBALLE, France, October 2, 2026 – Centigon, a recognized leader in vehicle armouring, security and defence, has officially joined Roshel Group, expanding the group’s transatlantic industrial presence.
The addition of Centigon connects over a century of European protection engineering with Canadian armoured vehicle manufacturing and specialized industrial capabilities in Latin America. This expanded industrial base now enables the delivery of protected mobility and integrated survivability solutions across a wider range of platforms and applications.
As Europe and Canada strengthen their defence industrial base and as Canada deepens its security and industrial ties with European partners, the group’s ambition is clear: to turn complementary expertise into greater capacity to deliver for defence, law enforcement, diplomatic security and commercial customers.
“Governments can make security and defence commitments, but it takes industry to deliver on them,” said Roman Shimonov, CEO of Roshel. “Welcoming Centigon connects the people, engineering and manufacturing capabilities needed to meet that responsibility, so we can respond with greater depth, greater scale and a shared commitment to protecting lives, from civilians to the women and men in uniform.”
An industrial heritage built around protection
Founded on coachbuilding roots dating to 1876, Centigon brings 150 years of craftsmanship and protection engineering to government, security, military and commercial customers, from discreetly armoured civilian vehicles and tactical platforms to military truck cabs for European armed forces and presidential fleet protection. Centigon’s operations in Mexico and Colombia also give the group an established presence in Latin America, one of the world’s largest markets for armoured vehicles.
Protected mobility: from ballistic glass to heavy-duty truck cabs
Roshel Group’s capabilities now range from raw materials to critical protection components to complete armoured vehicles. In Colombia, Centigon makes its own ballistic glass for vehicles and buildings. In France, it designs and builds armoured cabs for heavy-duty military trucks and converts vehicles to customer specifications. In Mexico, it builds armoured civilian, cash-transport and tactical vehicles, backed by long-standing customers across the region.
Together, these operations offer customers broader protection solutions under one group, with opportunities to advance product development, strengthen supply chain resilience and align production with customer needs. Centigon’s in-house ballistic range and laboratory in France will also become a shared engineering resource for the group, supporting faster development of armour materials and protection concepts.
A stronger industrial bridge between Canada and Europe
Canada is the first non-European country to have concluded a participation agreement under Security Action for Europe (SAFE), the European Union’s instrument for common defence procurement among member states, providing Canadian companies with access to European defence procurement on nearly the same footing as European firms.
For Roshel and Centigon, Canadian manufacturing combined with an established French industrial base creates a platform for joint development, coordinated production and eligible SAFE-supported procurement. The group aims to turn closer Canada–Europe cooperation into real industrial capacity, with stronger supply chains, shared engineering, and faster support for customers throughout the life of their vehicles.
For media inquiries, please contact:
info@roshel.com
www.roshel.com
www.centigon.com
About Roshel:
Roshel is a Canadian company that has grown into one of the world’s largest manufacturers of armoured vehicles for government and commercial customers. Its capabilities include vehicle design, engineering, manufacturing, integration, and in-service support for customers in defence, law enforcement, emergency response, and secure transportation.
About Centigon:
Centigon specializes in vehicle protection and ballistic solutions. Its businesses in France, Mexico and Colombia bring complementary expertise in armoured vehicles, protected commercial transport, armoured truck cabs and ballistic glass. With roots dating to 1876, Centigon draws on a 150-year industrial heritage to support its modern mission of protecting people and assets.
Noah Note: WOW! Talk about a late night surprise on a Friday. Also talk about an out of nowhere moment. Jesus. An absolute sledgehammer for Roshel to drop before the weekend, and a major move on their part. I needed a bit to calm myself when I saw.
Centigon France is not the largest company, but for many of you they are familiar. Like Roshel, Terradyne, Cambli, Inkas, and the rest of our usual suspects, Centigon in an upfitter and conversion shop, uparmouring existing vehicles and converting commercial chassis into armoured vehicles.
It employs about 140 people in Lamballe, and made about€36.6M in revenue last year. As the release mentioned, this acquisition includes Centigon France SAS, Centigon México and Centigon Glass in Colombia.
Despite not being the biggest, Centigon has undertaken several major contracts for the French State. They armoured the Peugeot 5008 used by the French Presidency, The GIGN has run its Fortress 200 Intervention, an armoured Land Cruiser since 2017, and the French Army has bought the Fortress 200 in the past.
While mainly an uparmourer, the company did unveil their own Senator analog at Eurosatory with Raven, a troop carrier designed for the RAID and BRI, France's elite police units. Like the Senator, Raven sits on a F-series (F-600) chassis. It comes with a 6.7L PowerStroke making 330 hp, a 10-speed gearbox, and room for 8 to 10 operators.
Granted, finding a converted F-Series vehicle is about as hard as a cloud in a rainy day, but I do make note of it because it is directly tied together with an existing Roshel product in the Senator and has a clientele base to support it. How that changes, if it does, with this acquisition is yet to be seen.
Centigon also has international defence work as well. The company has armoured Scania truck cabs for the Danish and Dutch armies. Centigon México brings its own line of converted trucks, including the F-series based Centurion, Alacrán, and now Fox and the Land Cruiser 79 based Puma family, among others. It also brings two additional plants in Mexico. Centigon Colombia brings in-house ballistic glass.
The Mexico one is extremely interesting as Roshel has also been contracted to supply the Senator to the Mexican government after a series of trials earlier this year (those trials also included the JLTV, TPS Black Mamba, KIA KLTV, and ETTS VTL).
This not only brings together an extensive catalog of vehicles alresdy utilized, but also provides the company a domestic support capacity through Centigon Mexico. Again, how that new capacity is utilized will be very interesting to see. Certainly, it sets the company on a good precedent to continue to support the significant demand present from the Mexican Army and National Guard, helped by their already existing contract mind you.
Again when it comed to products I won't speculate. Oftentimes, product lines in this case continue to remain mostly seperate unless there is good reason to merge exiting products and discontinue. There is significant overlap in the Fox, Raven and the Senator as example, but how Roshel decides to handle these similar products is yet to be seen. I imagine Raven sticks around given it's existing base, but thats just me speculating.
There's also the ownership note that will likely get memtioned. Since 2014, Centigon has been owned by by Chinese investors, mainly furniture retailer Red Star Macalline, with Dongfeng holding a minority stake. Yes, the company armouring vehicles to keep Papa Macron safe was the great State-owned Dongfeng and the great state-owned furniture company until this point, which is still somewhat funny to think about.
Now granted, Centigon has gone through several owners the last twenty years including Armor Holdings, BAE Systems, and Carat Duchatelet. These two have held it the longest, but the company is far from a model of stable ownership.
They tried to sell the company back in 2020, but found no closure. The comoany struggled hard during COVID as well, surviving primarinly off of a series of state backed grants and loans. Red Star Macalline, and keep in mind I am not an expert on the Chinese economy or this particular case, also had significant financial issues the last several years leading up to Xiamen C&D, a state group owned ultimately by the Xiamen city government took a majority stake.
I won't even begin to get into that, but you get the point. Was Chinese-owned, now not Chinese-owned. Canadian-owned, and the latest in Roshel's major expansion plans.
In rhe last year Roshel has agreed to buy International's Springfield plana, signed a new strategic partnership with Daimler at CANSEC, began to localize Seantor Production in Ukraine, found several new customers in Brazil, Mexico, Moldova and Chile, continued deliveries across Haiti, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the U.S., and of course signed an MOU with Stellantis on Brampton last month.
Thats new facilities in France, the United States, Mexico and Colombia. That isn't counting Brampton, which is still on the table nor it's collaborations in Ukraine and Czechia. This new fsctory gives the company not only a dedicated Mexican presence as the company begins supplying Senators to the Mexican government, but also gives the company an EU-based facility backed by a healthy French customer base and a new relationship with Scania.
All of this mind you is in the last year, coming after Carney met with Macron two weels ago, and ahead of a LUV decision. It is absolutely coming at a peak time, and is absolutely something that is going to be noticed. It's also another sign, if you needed it, that Roshel is not done yet with their aggresive expansion, far from it.
In four years the company has gone from a small Canadian manufacturer to a true International company, supported with several factories across the globe, including across North America and the EU, and has done it all without a major Canadian contract.
That in itself already feels wild, but it's also as close to the concept of ‘self-made success’ as things like the DIS fantasize about, a Canadian company that not only exports, but becomes a truly global presence. It's hard to argue that Roshel isnt at this stage.
Of course aggressive expansion has risks, big ones, and those will always exost in tbe immediate after such deals close. Roshel has done a lot in the last year, but now it has to support it and keep it profitable. I also wouldn't doubt that the company has other plans, Bramption being a big example of a massove facility without us knowing publicly what the plan is yet. I am very curious myself to see.
Of course this capacity also does put some pressure on the companies existing Canadian capacity. If other partners are going to support the company with actual contracts and support, than why prioritize their existing Canadian capacity? That risk does worry me, as I would hate to see us pushed down the ladder from a canadian-built company. I don't see that happening mind you. Far from it. I think the vision is elsewhere.
But it does deserve some acknowledgement, even as I try to be positive, as this is a good thing, and a great moment for the company. Still some questions out there, but I'm sure we'll hear soon enough.
Spot the contradiction: “Again when it comed to products I won't speculate…..I imagine Raven sticks around given it's existing base, but thats just me speculating.” 😅