Waterloo Tech Digest - December 4, 2007
Compiled and written by
Gary Will
gary@garywill.com
In this issue:
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
RISK FREE LEAD GENERATION
From sales opportunity development to increasing attendance for events, Virtual Causeway accelerates your sales process! With a focus on selling and marketing complex services and technology, we guarantee a consistent and reliable flow of quality leads - assuring that your pipeline is constantly full. Contact us today to learn how we can help connect you with your next customer. Call 519-886-1600 ext. 405 or email marketing@v-causeway.com for details.
ACCELERATE YOUR TIME-TO-MARKET
Advanced Research Technology (ART) saw a market opportunity in the pharmaceutical market but needed to accelerate product development. By partnering with INO, ART realized a new imaging system product less than six months later (see the complete story). Contact Glenn Smith in Waterloo at 519-502-1305 to explore how you can accelerate your time-to-market by partnering with INO.
BERESKIN & PARR - INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW
Bereskin & Parr is a leading Canadian intellectual property law firm on your doorstep. Our Waterloo region office brings a wealth of experience to serve the growing high technology and manufacturing communities in Canada's Technology Triangle and surrounding areas. Bereskin & Parr's practice encompasses all areas of intellectual property from patents to trade marks and related litigation. Please contact us at 519-783-3210, Tim Sinnott (tsinnott@bereskinparr.com), Neil Henderson (nhenderson@bereskinparr.com), for more information.
ARE YOU CONSISTENTLY MAKING YOUR NUMBERS?
The painful truth: Research proves that 50% of salespeople will always be underachievers. The costs inflicted by sub-par sales performers are huge and vastly underestimated by most companies. For information you can use to build winning sales teams, download our free whitepaper at http://www.peaksalesrecruiting.com/whitepaperoffer.php Peak Sales Recruiting focuses on finding top performing salespeople for technology companies.
IT SEARCH AND PLACEMENT SERVICES
Procom is currently ranked as the 4th largest IT professional services firm in Canada. (Branham 300, Financial Post, April 2007). Recently awarded one of Canada's 50 Best Managed Companies, Procom is a proud, Canadian-owned, privately-held company. Our local KW office provides IT, development and technology personnel on either a contract or permanent basis. We are the largest provider of IT staffing and recruiting services in Canada. Phone: 519.885.4331
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
[1]---------------------------------------------------------------
Navtech goes private, OTCBB listing dropped
November 30, 2007
Waterloo now has one fewer publicly traded company, with Navtech going private at the end of November.
Last month, Navtech's largest shareholders offered to buy all of the shares in the company that it did not already hold (see October digest). Following a couple of deadline extensions, the offer was accepted by most of Navtech's remaining shareholders. The ownership group ended up with enough shares in the company to force shareholders who hadn't accepted the US$2.50 a share offer to take the deal.
Over the last two years, Navtech's shares hadn't finished a month under US$2.50 until August. They had spent most of the last year between US$2.50 and US$3.00.
[2]---------------------------------------------------------------
Com Dev warns Q4 won't meet expectations; launches option review
November 29, 2007
Com Dev has warned that its Q4 results (period ended October 31) will fall short of forecasts, with the stronger Canadian dollar being blamed for the shortfall.
The company says Q4 revenue will be about $45 million -- which would still be an all-time record, but about $3 million below the level Com Dev felt confident it would achieve in September. It says that changes in the U.S.-Canadian dollar exchange rate in the quarter reduced revenue by $4.3 million. Gross margins plummeted to 17% after being in the 25-30% range previously.
As a result, the company will miss its target of 10% annual growth, and will instead be around the 8% mark. Full results will be announced next week.
At the same time, Com Dev announced that its board of directors has created a special committee to review the company's historical stock option granting practices. It didn't say what led to the review, how far back the it will go, or what issues it will be looking for (such as backdating or springloading). Earlier this year, RIM restated its financial results for the previous three fiscal years following a review of its option granting processes.
[3]---------------------------------------------------------------
Virtek replaces CEO
November 29, 2007
Bob Sandness is leaving Virtek at the end of this month after five years as CEO. He has been with the company since 1999.
The new CEO will be Stephen Sorocky, who has been the CEO of Mississauga-based Dynacon since 2000. He had previously led the space robotics business of Spar Aerospace and spent 16 years at that company, making him the second ex-Spar executive to become a Waterloo Region CEO this month (see ATS story below).
Sandness became president and, a few months later, CEO of Virtek in 2002, adopting a stick-to-our-knitting approach after the company had lost millions of dollars trying to create a biotech instruments business. Much of the knitting unravelled over the last year as Virtek's traditional markets in imaging and templating went through a rough period. The company has been looking to its engraving business -- acquired in 2003 -- as its hope for future revenue growth.
[4]---------------------------------------------------------------
RDM reports 39% sales growth in 2007
November 26, 2007
RDM reported earnings of $636,000 on sales of $7.5 million in the quarter ended September 30 (Q4 07). Revenue was up 10% from the previous quarter and 4% from 2006. Earnings were boosted by the recognition of $666,000 in R&D tax credits in the quarter. The company also recorded a foreign exchange gain of $215,000.
Operations provided $980,000 in cash and RDM ended the quarter with $17.4 million in cash. The company is talking about using some of that money to make acquisitions. ITMS weekly transaction volume ended the quarter at 2.1 million, up from 850,000 a year ago.
Digital imaging and electronic payment solutions combined to provide 96% of company revenue, with RDM's traditional cheque quality assurance business providing the remaining 4%.
For the year, RDM reported earnings of $5.8 million on sales of $33.9 million, up 39% from 2006. Of the net income, $2.7 million came from an accounting gain with the sale of RDM's stake in Xign (see April digest). Ignoring the Xign sale and a foreign exchange gain, RDM's operational earnings were $3.6 million in 2007 compared to $1.3 million in 2006. It shipped 54,700 scanners in the year, a jump from 33,900 the previous year. The number of locations where payments can be processed through ITMS grew from 3,300 to 8,400 in the year.
Over the year, RDM paid Data Treasury Corp. $831,000 in royalties, up from $552,000 in 2006. DataTreasury had sued RDM and others for patent infringement five years ago. The companies reached a settlement in 2003 and RDM continues to question the validity of Data Treasury's patents.
RDM expects that its growth rate for fiscal 2008 will be in line with what it has achieved over the last two years (25% last year and 39% this year).
[5]---------------------------------------------------------------
MKS has first profitable quarter since early-2006
November 27, 2007
For the first time in a year-and-a-half, MKS has reported a quarterly profit. In the period ended October 31 (Q2 08), it earned US$197,000 on sales of US$13.6 million, with sales flat from the previous quarter but up 18% from 2006.
The company's core ALM business, which accounted for 87% of revenue, reported 1% sales growth sequentially and 23% growth from last year. The ALM business also returned to profitability with income of US$92,000, up from a loss of US$833,000 last quarter. There were 29 ALM deals with a value over US$100,000, compared to 17 last quarter.
While revenue was flat from Q2, MKS was able to cut operating expenses by 8% sequentially, and that's with costs reported in U.S. dollars. The company said it had a foreign exchange gain of about US$300,000 in the quarter by keeping more of its money in Canadian dollars.
Operations used US$761,000 in cash and another US$1.0 million was distributed to shareholders through the usual quarterly dividend. MKS ended the quarter with US$9.9 million in cash, and has burned through US$5.4 million in the last two quarters, but expects to stronger cash flow through the last half of the fiscal year.
In the conference call, CEO Phil Deck said the company is seeing its ALM products used more by companies that put software into their products, rather than by companies developing software for internal use. He said that, traditionally, the business had been split pretty evenly between those two groups.
[6]---------------------------------------------------------------
ATS selects permanent CEO
November 19, 2007
Tony Caputo (no relation to Sandvine's Dave Caputo) is the new CEO of ATS. He takes over from John Bell, who was interim CEO for nine weeks following the ouster of the company's board of directors in September.
Caputo was the CEO of Spar Aerospace when it was acquired by L-3 Communications in 2002. He then became president of L-3 Communications Canada. He previously headed Spar's aviation business and had been with the company for nearly 20 years when it was acquired.
Caputo was immediately granted 640,000 options with a $4.40 exercise price. He also paid $247,000 to buy 55,000 ATS shares on the open market. Bell received 100,000 options, priced, not at the level ATS' shares were trading when he became CEO, but at the level they had fallen to more than two months later (and after he had passed the reins to Caputo) -- a difference that should eventually give Bell an additional $220,000.
[7]---------------------------------------------------------------
Descartes continues on steady path
November 29, 2007
Descartes' latest quarterly results once again showed consistency, if not organic growth. The company reported earnings of US$1.7 million on sales of US$15.5 million in the quarter ended October 31 (Q3 08). Revenue was up 8% from the previous quarter, with nearly all of those gains coming through the acquisition of UK-based Global Freight Exchange (GF-X) early in the quarter. Earnings and operational income were both flat from Q2.
Descartes has now been profitable for almost three years, but there's been no significant revenue growth over that period, other than a few acquisition-related bumps.
The company reports its results in U.S. dollars, and while there was a small sequential dip in margins in Q3, its operating expenses only went up 5% from the previous quarter.
Operations generated US$3.7 million in cash and Descartes spent a net US$6.0 million on the GF-X acquisition in the quarter. It has now US$48.3 million in cash.
The official cost of the GF-X acquisition was US$13.0 million plus US$5.2 million that will become payable if certain milestones are met by GF-X over the next four years. That's US$3.8 million more than was initially announced, which may reflect of the amount of cash that GF-X had on hand (which would go to Descartes with the acquisition). The full cost includes US$2.0 million in expenses, including US$1.0 million in termination benefits.
[8]---------------------------------------------------------------
Arise continues R&D, plant investments, reports $2.7M loss
November 12, 2007
Arise lost $2.7 million on sales of $356,000 in the quarter ended September 30 (Q3 07). The company is essentially in a pre-revenue stage as it prepares to commercialize research in new solar technologies. Gross profit in the quarter was just under $30,000.
The company had $1.1 million in R&D expenses in the quarter (down 30% from the previous quarter), along with $1.4 million in general and administrative expenses.
Operations consumed $4.5 million in cash with an additional $5.3 million spent on capital assets. Arise ended the quarter with $9.0 million in cash. This was before the company's share offering in October, which netted $32.4 million. As of November 9, the company had a cash balance of $41.9 million.
Accumulated deficit now stands at $19.1 million.
[9]---------------------------------------------------------------
Biorem reports loss, growing backlog; looks for new CFO
November 9, 2007
Biorem lost $1.7 million on sales of $2.5 million in the quarter ended September 30 (Q3 07). The loss included a $760,000 accounting expense when the company decided that it no longer meets the "more likely than not" GAAP standard for its future tax asset. Excluding that charge, results were in line with the previous quarter.
Operations used $498,000 in cash and Biorem ended the quarter with a cash balance of $1.9 million. Its order backlog at quarter-end stood at $9.5 million. For the second consecutive quarter, Biorem reported new orders of $3.6 million.
The company also announced that Greg Flanagan, its CFO for the last two-and-a-half years, has resigned. He had previously worked with Nu-Gro in Brantford, and Biorem says he left to work on a buyout opportunity with his old team. Biorem is looking for a new CFO.
San Francisco's Expansion Capital is investing another $450,000 in Biorem, buying 300,000 shares at $1.50 each. Expansion Capital's Clean Technology funds now own 3.4 million shares in the company, or 28% of its outstanding shares. Expansion Capital also invested in Agile Systems in 2005.
[10]---------------------------------------------------------------
STOCK REPORT: Big drops for ATS, Virtek, Com Dev, RDM
November 2007
First the good news: Open Text shares climbed to their best month-end price since July 2004.
And that's it. Open Text was the only company followed here to record a gain in its share price in November. It was a tough month for stocks in general in North America, and Canadian companies are struggling with the reduced margins and profitability that come with having the Canadian dollar now at par with the U.S. dollar.
The list of bad news is much longer:
For the month of November:
Open Text [TSX: OTC] +9%
Arise [TSXV: APV] 0%
===============================
RIM [TSX: RIM] -3%
--S&P TSX VENTURE INDEX -5%
Descartes [TSX: DSG] -6%
--S&P TSX COMPOSITE INDEX -6%
MKS [TSX: MKX] -7%
Biorem [TSXV: BRM] -13%
Dalsa [TSX: DSA] -14%
TurboSonic [OTCBB: TSTA] -14%
Sandvine [TSX: SVC] -18%
RDM [TSX: RC] -24%
Com Dev [TSX: CDV] -28%
Virtek [TSX: VRK] -35%
ATS [TSX: ATA] -40%
Navtech has been dropped from the list, since it is no longer a public company.
In the market capitalization rankings, pre-revenue (essentially) ARISE has overtaken Com Dev, although the gap is narrow enough that the positions could quickly reverse. RDM fell below MKS in market value and Virtek is now at the bottom of the list, trailing TurboSonic.
While RIM shares were down in November, they had set an all-time high early in the month.
Companies with core operations outside the area:
Ansys [Nasdaq: ANSS] +0%
AMIS [Nasdaq: AMIS] 0%
===================================
Google [Nasdaq: GOOG] -2%
McAfee [NYSE: MFE] -6%
Oracle [Nasdaq: ORCL] -9%
Sybase [NYSE: SY] -10%
Blue Coat [Nasdaq: BCSI] -11%
Adobe [Nasdaq: ADBE] -12%
NCR [NYSE: NCR] -13%
Agfa-Gevaert [Brussels: AGFA] -21%
[11]---------------------------------------------------------------
Miscellaneous Tidbits
Gary Will
gary@garywill.com
In this issue:
- Navtech goes private, OTCBB listing dropped
- Com Dev warns Q4 won't meet expectations; launches option review
- Virtek replaces CEO
- RDM reports 39% sales growth in 2007
- MKS has first profitable quarter since early-2006
- ATS selects permanent CEO
- Descartes continues on steady path
- Arise continues R&D, plant investments, reports $2.7M loss
- Biorem reports loss, growing backlog; looks for new CFO
- STOCK REPORT: Big drops for ATS, Virtek, Com Dev, RDM
- Miscellaneous tidbits from Maplesoft, Verdexus, RIM, LiveHive, Open Text
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
RISK FREE LEAD GENERATION
From sales opportunity development to increasing attendance for events, Virtual Causeway accelerates your sales process! With a focus on selling and marketing complex services and technology, we guarantee a consistent and reliable flow of quality leads - assuring that your pipeline is constantly full. Contact us today to learn how we can help connect you with your next customer. Call 519-886-1600 ext. 405 or email marketing@v-causeway.com for details.
ACCELERATE YOUR TIME-TO-MARKET
Advanced Research Technology (ART) saw a market opportunity in the pharmaceutical market but needed to accelerate product development. By partnering with INO, ART realized a new imaging system product less than six months later (see the complete story). Contact Glenn Smith in Waterloo at 519-502-1305 to explore how you can accelerate your time-to-market by partnering with INO.
BERESKIN & PARR - INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW
Bereskin & Parr is a leading Canadian intellectual property law firm on your doorstep. Our Waterloo region office brings a wealth of experience to serve the growing high technology and manufacturing communities in Canada's Technology Triangle and surrounding areas. Bereskin & Parr's practice encompasses all areas of intellectual property from patents to trade marks and related litigation. Please contact us at 519-783-3210, Tim Sinnott (tsinnott@bereskinparr.com), Neil Henderson (nhenderson@bereskinparr.com), for more information.
ARE YOU CONSISTENTLY MAKING YOUR NUMBERS?
The painful truth: Research proves that 50% of salespeople will always be underachievers. The costs inflicted by sub-par sales performers are huge and vastly underestimated by most companies. For information you can use to build winning sales teams, download our free whitepaper at http://www.peaksalesrecruiting.com/whitepaperoffer.php Peak Sales Recruiting focuses on finding top performing salespeople for technology companies.
IT SEARCH AND PLACEMENT SERVICES
Procom is currently ranked as the 4th largest IT professional services firm in Canada. (Branham 300, Financial Post, April 2007). Recently awarded one of Canada's 50 Best Managed Companies, Procom is a proud, Canadian-owned, privately-held company. Our local KW office provides IT, development and technology personnel on either a contract or permanent basis. We are the largest provider of IT staffing and recruiting services in Canada. Phone: 519.885.4331
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
[1]---------------------------------------------------------------
Navtech goes private, OTCBB listing dropped
November 30, 2007
Waterloo now has one fewer publicly traded company, with Navtech going private at the end of November.
Last month, Navtech's largest shareholders offered to buy all of the shares in the company that it did not already hold (see October digest). Following a couple of deadline extensions, the offer was accepted by most of Navtech's remaining shareholders. The ownership group ended up with enough shares in the company to force shareholders who hadn't accepted the US$2.50 a share offer to take the deal.
Over the last two years, Navtech's shares hadn't finished a month under US$2.50 until August. They had spent most of the last year between US$2.50 and US$3.00.
[2]---------------------------------------------------------------
Com Dev warns Q4 won't meet expectations; launches option review
November 29, 2007
Com Dev has warned that its Q4 results (period ended October 31) will fall short of forecasts, with the stronger Canadian dollar being blamed for the shortfall.
The company says Q4 revenue will be about $45 million -- which would still be an all-time record, but about $3 million below the level Com Dev felt confident it would achieve in September. It says that changes in the U.S.-Canadian dollar exchange rate in the quarter reduced revenue by $4.3 million. Gross margins plummeted to 17% after being in the 25-30% range previously.
As a result, the company will miss its target of 10% annual growth, and will instead be around the 8% mark. Full results will be announced next week.
At the same time, Com Dev announced that its board of directors has created a special committee to review the company's historical stock option granting practices. It didn't say what led to the review, how far back the it will go, or what issues it will be looking for (such as backdating or springloading). Earlier this year, RIM restated its financial results for the previous three fiscal years following a review of its option granting processes.
[3]---------------------------------------------------------------
Virtek replaces CEO
November 29, 2007
Bob Sandness is leaving Virtek at the end of this month after five years as CEO. He has been with the company since 1999.
The new CEO will be Stephen Sorocky, who has been the CEO of Mississauga-based Dynacon since 2000. He had previously led the space robotics business of Spar Aerospace and spent 16 years at that company, making him the second ex-Spar executive to become a Waterloo Region CEO this month (see ATS story below).
Sandness became president and, a few months later, CEO of Virtek in 2002, adopting a stick-to-our-knitting approach after the company had lost millions of dollars trying to create a biotech instruments business. Much of the knitting unravelled over the last year as Virtek's traditional markets in imaging and templating went through a rough period. The company has been looking to its engraving business -- acquired in 2003 -- as its hope for future revenue growth.
[4]---------------------------------------------------------------
RDM reports 39% sales growth in 2007
November 26, 2007
RDM reported earnings of $636,000 on sales of $7.5 million in the quarter ended September 30 (Q4 07). Revenue was up 10% from the previous quarter and 4% from 2006. Earnings were boosted by the recognition of $666,000 in R&D tax credits in the quarter. The company also recorded a foreign exchange gain of $215,000.
Operations provided $980,000 in cash and RDM ended the quarter with $17.4 million in cash. The company is talking about using some of that money to make acquisitions. ITMS weekly transaction volume ended the quarter at 2.1 million, up from 850,000 a year ago.
Digital imaging and electronic payment solutions combined to provide 96% of company revenue, with RDM's traditional cheque quality assurance business providing the remaining 4%.
For the year, RDM reported earnings of $5.8 million on sales of $33.9 million, up 39% from 2006. Of the net income, $2.7 million came from an accounting gain with the sale of RDM's stake in Xign (see April digest). Ignoring the Xign sale and a foreign exchange gain, RDM's operational earnings were $3.6 million in 2007 compared to $1.3 million in 2006. It shipped 54,700 scanners in the year, a jump from 33,900 the previous year. The number of locations where payments can be processed through ITMS grew from 3,300 to 8,400 in the year.
Over the year, RDM paid Data Treasury Corp. $831,000 in royalties, up from $552,000 in 2006. DataTreasury had sued RDM and others for patent infringement five years ago. The companies reached a settlement in 2003 and RDM continues to question the validity of Data Treasury's patents.
RDM expects that its growth rate for fiscal 2008 will be in line with what it has achieved over the last two years (25% last year and 39% this year).
[5]---------------------------------------------------------------
MKS has first profitable quarter since early-2006
November 27, 2007
For the first time in a year-and-a-half, MKS has reported a quarterly profit. In the period ended October 31 (Q2 08), it earned US$197,000 on sales of US$13.6 million, with sales flat from the previous quarter but up 18% from 2006.
The company's core ALM business, which accounted for 87% of revenue, reported 1% sales growth sequentially and 23% growth from last year. The ALM business also returned to profitability with income of US$92,000, up from a loss of US$833,000 last quarter. There were 29 ALM deals with a value over US$100,000, compared to 17 last quarter.
While revenue was flat from Q2, MKS was able to cut operating expenses by 8% sequentially, and that's with costs reported in U.S. dollars. The company said it had a foreign exchange gain of about US$300,000 in the quarter by keeping more of its money in Canadian dollars.
Operations used US$761,000 in cash and another US$1.0 million was distributed to shareholders through the usual quarterly dividend. MKS ended the quarter with US$9.9 million in cash, and has burned through US$5.4 million in the last two quarters, but expects to stronger cash flow through the last half of the fiscal year.
In the conference call, CEO Phil Deck said the company is seeing its ALM products used more by companies that put software into their products, rather than by companies developing software for internal use. He said that, traditionally, the business had been split pretty evenly between those two groups.
[6]---------------------------------------------------------------
ATS selects permanent CEO
November 19, 2007
Tony Caputo (no relation to Sandvine's Dave Caputo) is the new CEO of ATS. He takes over from John Bell, who was interim CEO for nine weeks following the ouster of the company's board of directors in September.
Caputo was the CEO of Spar Aerospace when it was acquired by L-3 Communications in 2002. He then became president of L-3 Communications Canada. He previously headed Spar's aviation business and had been with the company for nearly 20 years when it was acquired.
Caputo was immediately granted 640,000 options with a $4.40 exercise price. He also paid $247,000 to buy 55,000 ATS shares on the open market. Bell received 100,000 options, priced, not at the level ATS' shares were trading when he became CEO, but at the level they had fallen to more than two months later (and after he had passed the reins to Caputo) -- a difference that should eventually give Bell an additional $220,000.
[7]---------------------------------------------------------------
Descartes continues on steady path
November 29, 2007
Descartes' latest quarterly results once again showed consistency, if not organic growth. The company reported earnings of US$1.7 million on sales of US$15.5 million in the quarter ended October 31 (Q3 08). Revenue was up 8% from the previous quarter, with nearly all of those gains coming through the acquisition of UK-based Global Freight Exchange (GF-X) early in the quarter. Earnings and operational income were both flat from Q2.
Descartes has now been profitable for almost three years, but there's been no significant revenue growth over that period, other than a few acquisition-related bumps.
The company reports its results in U.S. dollars, and while there was a small sequential dip in margins in Q3, its operating expenses only went up 5% from the previous quarter.
Operations generated US$3.7 million in cash and Descartes spent a net US$6.0 million on the GF-X acquisition in the quarter. It has now US$48.3 million in cash.
The official cost of the GF-X acquisition was US$13.0 million plus US$5.2 million that will become payable if certain milestones are met by GF-X over the next four years. That's US$3.8 million more than was initially announced, which may reflect of the amount of cash that GF-X had on hand (which would go to Descartes with the acquisition). The full cost includes US$2.0 million in expenses, including US$1.0 million in termination benefits.
[8]---------------------------------------------------------------
Arise continues R&D, plant investments, reports $2.7M loss
November 12, 2007
Arise lost $2.7 million on sales of $356,000 in the quarter ended September 30 (Q3 07). The company is essentially in a pre-revenue stage as it prepares to commercialize research in new solar technologies. Gross profit in the quarter was just under $30,000.
The company had $1.1 million in R&D expenses in the quarter (down 30% from the previous quarter), along with $1.4 million in general and administrative expenses.
Operations consumed $4.5 million in cash with an additional $5.3 million spent on capital assets. Arise ended the quarter with $9.0 million in cash. This was before the company's share offering in October, which netted $32.4 million. As of November 9, the company had a cash balance of $41.9 million.
Accumulated deficit now stands at $19.1 million.
[9]---------------------------------------------------------------
Biorem reports loss, growing backlog; looks for new CFO
November 9, 2007
Biorem lost $1.7 million on sales of $2.5 million in the quarter ended September 30 (Q3 07). The loss included a $760,000 accounting expense when the company decided that it no longer meets the "more likely than not" GAAP standard for its future tax asset. Excluding that charge, results were in line with the previous quarter.
Operations used $498,000 in cash and Biorem ended the quarter with a cash balance of $1.9 million. Its order backlog at quarter-end stood at $9.5 million. For the second consecutive quarter, Biorem reported new orders of $3.6 million.
The company also announced that Greg Flanagan, its CFO for the last two-and-a-half years, has resigned. He had previously worked with Nu-Gro in Brantford, and Biorem says he left to work on a buyout opportunity with his old team. Biorem is looking for a new CFO.
San Francisco's Expansion Capital is investing another $450,000 in Biorem, buying 300,000 shares at $1.50 each. Expansion Capital's Clean Technology funds now own 3.4 million shares in the company, or 28% of its outstanding shares. Expansion Capital also invested in Agile Systems in 2005.
[10]---------------------------------------------------------------
STOCK REPORT: Big drops for ATS, Virtek, Com Dev, RDM
November 2007
First the good news: Open Text shares climbed to their best month-end price since July 2004.
And that's it. Open Text was the only company followed here to record a gain in its share price in November. It was a tough month for stocks in general in North America, and Canadian companies are struggling with the reduced margins and profitability that come with having the Canadian dollar now at par with the U.S. dollar.
The list of bad news is much longer:
- Virtek shares fell to an all-time low, surpassing the previous record set in April 2005
- Dalsa shares had their lowest month-end price in nearly six years
- MKS had its lowest month-end in three years
- TurboSonic's was its lowest in two years
- Com Dev had its worst month-end since February 2006
- RDM and Descartes shares fell to their lowest month-end in the last year
- Sandvine has lost over $200 million in value over the last two months
For the month of November:
Open Text [TSX: OTC] +9%
Arise [TSXV: APV] 0%
===============================
RIM [TSX: RIM] -3%
--S&P TSX VENTURE INDEX -5%
Descartes [TSX: DSG] -6%
--S&P TSX COMPOSITE INDEX -6%
MKS [TSX: MKX] -7%
Biorem [TSXV: BRM] -13%
Dalsa [TSX: DSA] -14%
TurboSonic [OTCBB: TSTA] -14%
Sandvine [TSX: SVC] -18%
RDM [TSX: RC] -24%
Com Dev [TSX: CDV] -28%
Virtek [TSX: VRK] -35%
ATS [TSX: ATA] -40%
Navtech has been dropped from the list, since it is no longer a public company.
In the market capitalization rankings, pre-revenue (essentially) ARISE has overtaken Com Dev, although the gap is narrow enough that the positions could quickly reverse. RDM fell below MKS in market value and Virtek is now at the bottom of the list, trailing TurboSonic.
While RIM shares were down in November, they had set an all-time high early in the month.
Companies with core operations outside the area:
Ansys [Nasdaq: ANSS] +0%
AMIS [Nasdaq: AMIS] 0%
===================================
Google [Nasdaq: GOOG] -2%
McAfee [NYSE: MFE] -6%
Oracle [Nasdaq: ORCL] -9%
Sybase [NYSE: SY] -10%
Blue Coat [Nasdaq: BCSI] -11%
Adobe [Nasdaq: ADBE] -12%
NCR [NYSE: NCR] -13%
Agfa-Gevaert [Brussels: AGFA] -21%
[11]---------------------------------------------------------------
Miscellaneous Tidbits
- Maplesoft signed what it says is the biggest deal in company history, a multi-year contract with Toyota. Maplesoft will develop physical modelling tools for Toyota's "model-based development" processes, where advanced software tools are used to develop automotive systems. The companies are also forming a physical modelling consortium and are working together on "other yet-to-be-announced projects."
- Randall Howard is the new chairman of Ottawa's Iotum, following an investment in the company by his firm, Verdexus. Iotum's CEO is Alec Saunders, a UW grad in the 1980s who worked for Vestronix before spending over seven years with Microsoft. He co-founded Iotum in 2003.
- The BlackBerry is coming to Russia, although not very many of them. The Globe & Mail reported that two wireless companies received permission from the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation to import about 1,000 devices each in the first year, expected to start some time in 2008.
- LiveHive worked with ProElite (owners of UFC competitor EliteXC) to provide real-time prediction games on the ProElite website during the UFC pay-per-view in November. That's like having the CFL put games on its website predicting outcomes during NFL games. LiveHive had to figure out a way to announce this without ever saying "UFC" so it referred instead to "the upcoming MMA fight being held in New Jersey." It turned out to be weakest UFC PPV in years, so what few viewers there were probably appreciated the diversion. Next one should be much better.
- Forgot to mention last month that Phil Menary is now engineering VP at LiveHive. He was previously with RSS Solutions and DiskStream and then spent a few months with Tech Capital Partners. Menary also worked in software development with CheckFree in Waterloo, and before that was with Mutual Group/Clarica.
- With Ottawa's Cognos set to be acquired by IBM for $5 billion early in 2008, there were a few stories during the month speculating about when it will be Open Text's turn to be snapped up. Open Text CEO John Shackleton told the National Post that he is working on a partnership with Google but said he isn't looking to sell the company to anyone
posted by Gary Will at 1:28 AM
