Waterloo Tech Digest - July 7, 2008
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
DELOITTE - SHAPING CANADIAN BUSINESS FOR 150 YEARS
Deloitte's technology, media and telecommunications practice delivers a suite of services including audit, tax, financial advisory, enterprise risk and consulting. We work with all types of technology companies, including early stage and high-growth companies, to help them succeed. We'll help you grow through contacts, M&A, raising capital and most of all through great business advice. We want to be your trusted advisor and look forward to working with you. Contact Jamie Barron 289-259-3385, jabarron@deloitte.ca or Jane Jantzi at 519-650-7788, jjantzi@deloitte.ca.
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) for more information.
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.
ENHANCE YOUR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
INO can deliver competitive advantage to fuel company growth. As described in this video, INO's optical recognition technology helped Optosecurity raise $20 million in financing and create a world-class team, Further information on INO's optical recognition technology can be found here. Please contact Glenn Smith in Waterloo at 519-502-1305 to explore how INO might deliver competitive advantage to your organization.
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]---------------------------------------------------------------
Virtek shareholders asked to support hostile takeover
June 16, 2008
Virtek is now the target of a hostile takeover bid, after its board rejected the initial acquisition offer from New Hampshire's StockerYale (see previous digest). StockerYale has taken its offer to Virtek's shareholders with a deadline for acceptance of August 1.
StockerYale slightly improved its offer to an all-cash deal of 65 cents a share (or 70 cents a share in cash and StockerYale shares, if Virtek's board agrees to the deal). The initial offer was for 65 cents a share to be paid about three-quarters in cash and the balance in StockerYale shares. Virtek's board has not responded to the revised offer, but the company said it has hired Genuity Capital to assist in assessing the offer and has created a special committee of independent directors to evaluate the bid.
Virtek's largest shareholder -- Toronto-based Howson Tattersall Investment Counsel -- didn't wait for the board's response and immediately pledged its support for StockerYale. The firm holds about 13% of Virtek's outstanding shares. (Howson Tattersall was also listed as Dalsa's second largest shareholder at the time of the company's AGM in February.) MMCAP International, which owns about 4% of Virtek, is also supporting the StockerYale offer. For its bid to proceed, StockerYale needs to get the holders of two-thirds of Virtek shares to sell their stock.
According to StockerYale's prospectus, it was Robert Tattersall who initiated the talks between StockerYale and Virtek after he met the StockerYale CEO at an investor conference in April. StockerYale says it sent the offer to Virtek's board on May 13, at a time when Virtek shares were trading around 44 cents. It says it became concerned about the trading activity two days later -- a day that Virtek shares briefly traded at 64 cents, their highest level in months. At that point, the offer from StockerYale had not yet been announced. Virtek shares closed Friday at 59 cents.
From a business perspective, it's not obvious what synergies would be achieved through the deal, since StockerYale doesn't seem to have any expertise in Virtek's markets. Together, it looks like they'd become a company with little cash and plenty of debt, with operations spread across very different markets on different continents, all under a management team with very little experience in the businesses where most of its gross profits would be generated.
StockerYale is a struggling company itself, with a loss of US$9.0 million over the last 12 months and an accumulated deficit of US$95.4 million. Its stock has dropped 65% over the last year and has been outperformed by Virtek shares over the past year, three years, and five years. The company is now facing a delisting from Nasdaq since its shares have closed under a dollar ever day since November. StockerYale seems to be planning a reverse split to get its shares back over the floor price required by Nasdaq.
At last report, StockerYale only had US$2.4 million in cash on its balance sheet and working capital of just US$1.1 million. It would use debt to finance the deal, and is already carrying US$13 million in debt on its books. This deal could add another $22 million to the total.
[2]---------------------------------------------------------------
Virtek remains profitable on sluggish sales
June 12, 2008
Virtek also announced its latest quarterly results during the month. For the period ended April 30 (Q1 09), it earned $481,000 on sales of $12.2 million. Sales were down 8% from the previous quarter and 9% from last year.
Sales from Virtek's imaging and templating sales segment down 26% sequentially and 16% from last year, but the business accounted for all of the profits in the quarter. The marking and engraving business showed a small drop in sales from Q4 but a 13% gain from last year and provided nearly 58% of all revenue in the quarter, while losing $105,000.
Virtek ended the quarter with $7.7 million in net cash, up $400,000 from the end of Q4.
[3]---------------------------------------------------------------
Open Text acquires Spicer
July 3, 2008
Open Text has acquired the assets of Spicer Corporation for $12 million. About 30 Spicer employees will join Open Text and form the core of the company's new content viewer solutions group.
Spicer Corporation had operated as a division of PrinterOn since 2000. The company traces its history back to 1983 when Steve Spicer -- who died a year ago (see July 2007 digest) -- founded a one-person software company while he was a mechanical engineering student at UW. It became Spicer Corporation in 1987. Spicer founded PrinterOn in 2000 and Spicer Corporation was folded into the new company when it closed its initial round of funding.
PrinterOn will continue with its mobile printing business.
[4]---------------------------------------------------------------
Com Dev sales jump 40%
June 12, 2008
A strong quarter for Com Dev, with sales of $54.2 million in the period ended April 30 (Q2 08). Sales were up 21% from the previous quarter and 40% from a year ago. Net income in the quarter was $2.0 million.
Com Dev booked $42 million in new orders in Q2 -- up from $33 million last quarter -- and ended the period with an order backlog of $120 million.
Operations used $1.9 million in cash and the company spent an additional $2.7 million on capital assets. It ended the quarter with $8.9 million in cash, down $5.4 million from the end of Q1.
Total R&D spending of $4.6 million was up 67% from a lull in the last quarter and back to the levels seen in the previous fiscal year. Gross margins of 22% were consistent with Q1 and the company expects to see them return to the 25-29 percent range.
Com Dev also announced that it is expanding its business and has started a $7 million program to enter the microsatellite business. The company says it will design and manufacture microsatellites (150 kg or less) that can be used in such applications as surveillance, security, environmental monitoring, scientific analysis and communications.
And the company has hired two new division presidents after reorganizing into four operating divisions on February 1. George Cwynar is now president of Ottawa-based Com Dev Canada. He was previously CEO of Mosaid Technologies. Michael Williams, who has been with Com Dev for 15 years, was named president of Com Dev International Products, based in Cambridge. Com Dev USA and Com Dev Europe are the other two divisions. COO Michael Pley oversees all four divisions.
Com Dev also reported that the special committee formed to review the company's historical stock option granting processes found that "certain directors, officers and employees" had received backdated options, or options that were priced lower than the market rate on the actual date they were granted. The committee said the option granting process was "characterized by informality and by a lack of definitive documentation" especially during the period of rapid growth following the company's IPO.
If that sounds familiar, it's because it was lifted verbatim from the report last year by RIM's committee that looked into that company's option granting practices (actually, the Com Dev committee inserted an additional "by"). But unlike RIM, which had to restate its historical earnings by US$250 million, Com Dev says that it will not require any restatements.
[5]---------------------------------------------------------------
RIM quarterly sales top $2B
June 25, 2008
RIM reported earnings of US$482.5 million on sales of US$2.2 billion in the quarter ended May 31 (Q1 09). Sales were up 19% from the previous quarter and 107% from last year.
There were 2.3 million new BlackBerry subscribers in the quarter, bringing the total to over 16 million. RIM shipped 5.4 million devices and says it will cross the 40 million mark this quarter.
It ended the quarter with US$2.1 billion in cash.
RIM is forecasting sales of US$2.55-2.65 billion in the current quarter with a projected 2.6 million new BlackBerry users. It expects earnings to be around US$490-520 million.
RIM is involved in five new patent infringement suits filed in the quarter. The litigation section of its quarterly report is nearly five pages long.
[6]---------------------------------------------------------------
MKS reports record-setting quarter
June 3, 2008
It was only MKS' second profitable quarter in the last two years, but it erased a lot of the losses that preceded it, as the company reported earnings of US$4.7 million on sales of US$21.2 million in the period ended April 30 (Q4 08). Revenue was in line with the company's pre-announcement last month (see previous digest).
Sales were up 65% from Q3 and 67% from last year. On top of US$4.1 million in operating income, MKS' return to profitability also triggered an income tax recovery during the quarter.
Revenue for the quarter included the $5 million licensing deal that MKS announced in March with an existing automotive customer. MKS had 19 deals over $100,000 in the quarter, compared to seven in Q3.
For the 2008 fiscal year, MKS had record sales of $61.2 million, up 27% from 2007. On the strength of Q4, it was able to report earnings of US$3.8 million for the year.
It ended the year with US$12.9 million in cash, up US$2.3 million from the end of Q3, and the current quarter should be a good one for cash flow, since MKS ended the year with an abnormally high level of receivables (because of the high level of Q4 sales), which it says has now been reduced to normal levels. In Q4, operations provided US$3.2 million in cash and, as usual, MKS spent US$1.0 million on dividends.
[7]---------------------------------------------------------------
STOCK REPORT: Sandvine rebounds; Dalsa tops for '08 at mid-point
June 2008
After spending most of the last six months at the bottom of our stock performance list, shares of Sandvine finally rebounded in June ... bouncing all the way to the top of the list. It was the first time since September that Sandvine's stock price showed a monthly gain. As of Friday's close, the stock was up another 9% so far in July.
For the month of June:
Sandvine [TSX: SVC] +21%
ATS [TSX: ATA] +20%
RDM [TSX: RC] +13%
Virtek [TSX: VRK] +2%
Biorem [TSXV: BRM] 0%
===============================
--S&P TSX VENTURE INDEX -1%
--S&P TSX COMPOSITE INDEX -2%
MKS [TSX: MKX] -3%
Dalsa [TSX: DSA] -8%
Open Text [TSX: OTC] -8%
Com Dev [TSX: CDV] -10%
Descartes [TSX: DSG] -11%
TurboSonic [OTCBB: TSTA] -12%
RIM [TSX: RIM] -13%
Arise [TSX: APV] -21%
With the gains, Sandvine jumped ahead of Descartes on the market capitalization list (see below).
RDM shares, which have also been off to a terrible start in 2008, had their best month in nearly a year and a half.
Investors didn't respond well to RIM's quarterly results and forecasts, even with the company expecting about a half-billion dollars in profits this quarter. The drop came after four consecutive months of gains, over which the price of RIM shares jumped by 46%.
There were no gainers among companies with core operations outside the area:
===================================
Ansys [Nasdaq: ANSS] -0%
NCR [NYSE: NCR] -5%
McAfee [NYSE: MFE] -6%
ON Semiconductor [Nasdaq: ONNN] -7%
Oracle [Nasdaq: ORCL] -8%
Sybase [NYSE: SY] -8%
Google [Nasdaq: GOOG] -10%
Adobe [Nasdaq: ADBE] -11%
Agfa-Gevaert [Brussels: AGFA] -16%
Blue Coat [Nasdaq: BCSI] -22%
We've reached the half-way point of 2008, and here's how the shares of local companies have fared so far this year:
Dalsa [TSX: DSA] +51%
ATS [TSX: ATA] +43%
Virtek [TSX: VRK] +31%
MKS [TSX: MKX] +14%
RIM [TSX: RIM] +6%
--S&P TSX COMPOSITE INDEX +5%
Open Text [TSX: OTC] +4%
===============================
--S&P TSX VENTURE INDEX -7%
Com Dev [TSX: CDV] -9%
Biorem [TSXV: BRM] -10%
Descartes [TSX: DSG] -18%
TurboSonic [OTCBB: TSTA] -35%
Arise [TSX: APV] -39%
RDM [TSX: RC] -42%
Sandvine [TSX: SVC] -63%
Even with a good June, Sandvine shares were easily the worst performer over the first half of the year. They were on the top of this list a year ago, followed by Arise, but neither stock was able to keep its momentum into 2008. Shares of Dalsa, ATS, and Virtek all had a rough year in 2007 and have started to bounce back.
Market capitalization at June 30
in millions, using outstanding shares
(Year-to-date change in parentheses):
1. RIM ----- $69,949 (+$6,803)
2. Open Text ----- 1,669 (+74)
3. ATS ----- 572 (+173)
4. Dalsa ----- 242 (+83)
5. Com Dev ----- 225 (-22)
6. Arise ----- 197 (-55)
7. Sandvine ----- 193 (-330)
8. Descartes ----- 181 (-39)
9. MKS ----- 78 (+9)
10. RDM ----- 33 (-23)
11. Virtek ----- 18 (+4)
12. Biorem ----- 11 (-1)
13. TurboSonic ----- 8 (-4)
[8]---------------------------------------------------------------
Miscellaneous Tidbits
Gary Will
gary@garywill.com
In this issue:
- Virtek shareholders asked to support hostile takeover
- Virtek remains profitable on sluggish sales
- Open Text acquires Spicer
- Com Dev sales jump 40%
- RIM quarterly sales top $2B
- MKS reports record-setting quarter
- STOCK REPORT: Sandvine rebounds; Dalsa tops for '08 at mid-point
- Miscellaneous tidbits from Avvasi, Zoomii, ProductWiki, Well.ca, Dalsa, LiveHive, HighJump, LoyaltyMatch
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
DELOITTE - SHAPING CANADIAN BUSINESS FOR 150 YEARS
Deloitte's technology, media and telecommunications practice delivers a suite of services including audit, tax, financial advisory, enterprise risk and consulting. We work with all types of technology companies, including early stage and high-growth companies, to help them succeed. We'll help you grow through contacts, M&A, raising capital and most of all through great business advice. We want to be your trusted advisor and look forward to working with you. Contact Jamie Barron 289-259-3385, jabarron@deloitte.ca or Jane Jantzi at 519-650-7788, jjantzi@deloitte.ca.
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) for more information.
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.
ENHANCE YOUR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
INO can deliver competitive advantage to fuel company growth. As described in this video, INO's optical recognition technology helped Optosecurity raise $20 million in financing and create a world-class team, Further information on INO's optical recognition technology can be found here. Please contact Glenn Smith in Waterloo at 519-502-1305 to explore how INO might deliver competitive advantage to your organization.
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]---------------------------------------------------------------
Virtek shareholders asked to support hostile takeover
June 16, 2008
Virtek is now the target of a hostile takeover bid, after its board rejected the initial acquisition offer from New Hampshire's StockerYale (see previous digest). StockerYale has taken its offer to Virtek's shareholders with a deadline for acceptance of August 1.
StockerYale slightly improved its offer to an all-cash deal of 65 cents a share (or 70 cents a share in cash and StockerYale shares, if Virtek's board agrees to the deal). The initial offer was for 65 cents a share to be paid about three-quarters in cash and the balance in StockerYale shares. Virtek's board has not responded to the revised offer, but the company said it has hired Genuity Capital to assist in assessing the offer and has created a special committee of independent directors to evaluate the bid.
Virtek's largest shareholder -- Toronto-based Howson Tattersall Investment Counsel -- didn't wait for the board's response and immediately pledged its support for StockerYale. The firm holds about 13% of Virtek's outstanding shares. (Howson Tattersall was also listed as Dalsa's second largest shareholder at the time of the company's AGM in February.) MMCAP International, which owns about 4% of Virtek, is also supporting the StockerYale offer. For its bid to proceed, StockerYale needs to get the holders of two-thirds of Virtek shares to sell their stock.
According to StockerYale's prospectus, it was Robert Tattersall who initiated the talks between StockerYale and Virtek after he met the StockerYale CEO at an investor conference in April. StockerYale says it sent the offer to Virtek's board on May 13, at a time when Virtek shares were trading around 44 cents. It says it became concerned about the trading activity two days later -- a day that Virtek shares briefly traded at 64 cents, their highest level in months. At that point, the offer from StockerYale had not yet been announced. Virtek shares closed Friday at 59 cents.
From a business perspective, it's not obvious what synergies would be achieved through the deal, since StockerYale doesn't seem to have any expertise in Virtek's markets. Together, it looks like they'd become a company with little cash and plenty of debt, with operations spread across very different markets on different continents, all under a management team with very little experience in the businesses where most of its gross profits would be generated.
StockerYale is a struggling company itself, with a loss of US$9.0 million over the last 12 months and an accumulated deficit of US$95.4 million. Its stock has dropped 65% over the last year and has been outperformed by Virtek shares over the past year, three years, and five years. The company is now facing a delisting from Nasdaq since its shares have closed under a dollar ever day since November. StockerYale seems to be planning a reverse split to get its shares back over the floor price required by Nasdaq.
At last report, StockerYale only had US$2.4 million in cash on its balance sheet and working capital of just US$1.1 million. It would use debt to finance the deal, and is already carrying US$13 million in debt on its books. This deal could add another $22 million to the total.
[2]---------------------------------------------------------------
Virtek remains profitable on sluggish sales
June 12, 2008
Virtek also announced its latest quarterly results during the month. For the period ended April 30 (Q1 09), it earned $481,000 on sales of $12.2 million. Sales were down 8% from the previous quarter and 9% from last year.
Sales from Virtek's imaging and templating sales segment down 26% sequentially and 16% from last year, but the business accounted for all of the profits in the quarter. The marking and engraving business showed a small drop in sales from Q4 but a 13% gain from last year and provided nearly 58% of all revenue in the quarter, while losing $105,000.
Virtek ended the quarter with $7.7 million in net cash, up $400,000 from the end of Q4.
[3]---------------------------------------------------------------
Open Text acquires Spicer
July 3, 2008
Open Text has acquired the assets of Spicer Corporation for $12 million. About 30 Spicer employees will join Open Text and form the core of the company's new content viewer solutions group.
Spicer Corporation had operated as a division of PrinterOn since 2000. The company traces its history back to 1983 when Steve Spicer -- who died a year ago (see July 2007 digest) -- founded a one-person software company while he was a mechanical engineering student at UW. It became Spicer Corporation in 1987. Spicer founded PrinterOn in 2000 and Spicer Corporation was folded into the new company when it closed its initial round of funding.
PrinterOn will continue with its mobile printing business.
[4]---------------------------------------------------------------
Com Dev sales jump 40%
June 12, 2008
A strong quarter for Com Dev, with sales of $54.2 million in the period ended April 30 (Q2 08). Sales were up 21% from the previous quarter and 40% from a year ago. Net income in the quarter was $2.0 million.
Com Dev booked $42 million in new orders in Q2 -- up from $33 million last quarter -- and ended the period with an order backlog of $120 million.
Operations used $1.9 million in cash and the company spent an additional $2.7 million on capital assets. It ended the quarter with $8.9 million in cash, down $5.4 million from the end of Q1.
Total R&D spending of $4.6 million was up 67% from a lull in the last quarter and back to the levels seen in the previous fiscal year. Gross margins of 22% were consistent with Q1 and the company expects to see them return to the 25-29 percent range.
Com Dev also announced that it is expanding its business and has started a $7 million program to enter the microsatellite business. The company says it will design and manufacture microsatellites (150 kg or less) that can be used in such applications as surveillance, security, environmental monitoring, scientific analysis and communications.
And the company has hired two new division presidents after reorganizing into four operating divisions on February 1. George Cwynar is now president of Ottawa-based Com Dev Canada. He was previously CEO of Mosaid Technologies. Michael Williams, who has been with Com Dev for 15 years, was named president of Com Dev International Products, based in Cambridge. Com Dev USA and Com Dev Europe are the other two divisions. COO Michael Pley oversees all four divisions.
Com Dev also reported that the special committee formed to review the company's historical stock option granting processes found that "certain directors, officers and employees" had received backdated options, or options that were priced lower than the market rate on the actual date they were granted. The committee said the option granting process was "characterized by informality and by a lack of definitive documentation" especially during the period of rapid growth following the company's IPO.
If that sounds familiar, it's because it was lifted verbatim from the report last year by RIM's committee that looked into that company's option granting practices (actually, the Com Dev committee inserted an additional "by"). But unlike RIM, which had to restate its historical earnings by US$250 million, Com Dev says that it will not require any restatements.
[5]---------------------------------------------------------------
RIM quarterly sales top $2B
June 25, 2008
RIM reported earnings of US$482.5 million on sales of US$2.2 billion in the quarter ended May 31 (Q1 09). Sales were up 19% from the previous quarter and 107% from last year.
There were 2.3 million new BlackBerry subscribers in the quarter, bringing the total to over 16 million. RIM shipped 5.4 million devices and says it will cross the 40 million mark this quarter.
It ended the quarter with US$2.1 billion in cash.
RIM is forecasting sales of US$2.55-2.65 billion in the current quarter with a projected 2.6 million new BlackBerry users. It expects earnings to be around US$490-520 million.
RIM is involved in five new patent infringement suits filed in the quarter. The litigation section of its quarterly report is nearly five pages long.
[6]---------------------------------------------------------------
MKS reports record-setting quarter
June 3, 2008
It was only MKS' second profitable quarter in the last two years, but it erased a lot of the losses that preceded it, as the company reported earnings of US$4.7 million on sales of US$21.2 million in the period ended April 30 (Q4 08). Revenue was in line with the company's pre-announcement last month (see previous digest).
Sales were up 65% from Q3 and 67% from last year. On top of US$4.1 million in operating income, MKS' return to profitability also triggered an income tax recovery during the quarter.
Revenue for the quarter included the $5 million licensing deal that MKS announced in March with an existing automotive customer. MKS had 19 deals over $100,000 in the quarter, compared to seven in Q3.
For the 2008 fiscal year, MKS had record sales of $61.2 million, up 27% from 2007. On the strength of Q4, it was able to report earnings of US$3.8 million for the year.
It ended the year with US$12.9 million in cash, up US$2.3 million from the end of Q3, and the current quarter should be a good one for cash flow, since MKS ended the year with an abnormally high level of receivables (because of the high level of Q4 sales), which it says has now been reduced to normal levels. In Q4, operations provided US$3.2 million in cash and, as usual, MKS spent US$1.0 million on dividends.
[7]---------------------------------------------------------------
STOCK REPORT: Sandvine rebounds; Dalsa tops for '08 at mid-point
June 2008
After spending most of the last six months at the bottom of our stock performance list, shares of Sandvine finally rebounded in June ... bouncing all the way to the top of the list. It was the first time since September that Sandvine's stock price showed a monthly gain. As of Friday's close, the stock was up another 9% so far in July.
For the month of June:
Sandvine [TSX: SVC] +21%
ATS [TSX: ATA] +20%
RDM [TSX: RC] +13%
Virtek [TSX: VRK] +2%
Biorem [TSXV: BRM] 0%
===============================
--S&P TSX VENTURE INDEX -1%
--S&P TSX COMPOSITE INDEX -2%
MKS [TSX: MKX] -3%
Dalsa [TSX: DSA] -8%
Open Text [TSX: OTC] -8%
Com Dev [TSX: CDV] -10%
Descartes [TSX: DSG] -11%
TurboSonic [OTCBB: TSTA] -12%
RIM [TSX: RIM] -13%
Arise [TSX: APV] -21%
With the gains, Sandvine jumped ahead of Descartes on the market capitalization list (see below).
RDM shares, which have also been off to a terrible start in 2008, had their best month in nearly a year and a half.
Investors didn't respond well to RIM's quarterly results and forecasts, even with the company expecting about a half-billion dollars in profits this quarter. The drop came after four consecutive months of gains, over which the price of RIM shares jumped by 46%.
There were no gainers among companies with core operations outside the area:
===================================
Ansys [Nasdaq: ANSS] -0%
NCR [NYSE: NCR] -5%
McAfee [NYSE: MFE] -6%
ON Semiconductor [Nasdaq: ONNN] -7%
Oracle [Nasdaq: ORCL] -8%
Sybase [NYSE: SY] -8%
Google [Nasdaq: GOOG] -10%
Adobe [Nasdaq: ADBE] -11%
Agfa-Gevaert [Brussels: AGFA] -16%
Blue Coat [Nasdaq: BCSI] -22%
We've reached the half-way point of 2008, and here's how the shares of local companies have fared so far this year:
Dalsa [TSX: DSA] +51%
ATS [TSX: ATA] +43%
Virtek [TSX: VRK] +31%
MKS [TSX: MKX] +14%
RIM [TSX: RIM] +6%
--S&P TSX COMPOSITE INDEX +5%
Open Text [TSX: OTC] +4%
===============================
--S&P TSX VENTURE INDEX -7%
Com Dev [TSX: CDV] -9%
Biorem [TSXV: BRM] -10%
Descartes [TSX: DSG] -18%
TurboSonic [OTCBB: TSTA] -35%
Arise [TSX: APV] -39%
RDM [TSX: RC] -42%
Sandvine [TSX: SVC] -63%
Even with a good June, Sandvine shares were easily the worst performer over the first half of the year. They were on the top of this list a year ago, followed by Arise, but neither stock was able to keep its momentum into 2008. Shares of Dalsa, ATS, and Virtek all had a rough year in 2007 and have started to bounce back.
Market capitalization at June 30
in millions, using outstanding shares
(Year-to-date change in parentheses):
1. RIM ----- $69,949 (+$6,803)
2. Open Text ----- 1,669 (+74)
3. ATS ----- 572 (+173)
4. Dalsa ----- 242 (+83)
5. Com Dev ----- 225 (-22)
6. Arise ----- 197 (-55)
7. Sandvine ----- 193 (-330)
8. Descartes ----- 181 (-39)
9. MKS ----- 78 (+9)
10. RDM ----- 33 (-23)
11. Virtek ----- 18 (+4)
12. Biorem ----- 11 (-1)
13. TurboSonic ----- 8 (-4)
[8]---------------------------------------------------------------
Miscellaneous Tidbits
- It hasn't exactly been announced yet, but Avvasi apparently closed its first round of funding, with Celtic House among the investors. Celtic House added Avvasi to its portfolio list during the month.
- Zoomii had its official launch in June. The online bookstore features a real-world bookstore user interface that links to Amazon for order processing. It's been impressing audiences at BarCamps and other events over the last year. Zoomii was founded by Chris Thiessen, who previously worked for Intellitactics and AdExact. http://zoomii.ca and http://zoomii.com
- The three founders of ProductWiki -- the brother-sister/wife-husband team of Omar Ismail, Amanie Ismail and Erik Kalviainen -- are finalists for the young entrepreneur award at the Ernst & Young-sponsored Ontario Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards. They are the only nominees from this area for any of the nine awards. In fact, 80% of the finalists are from the GTA. Winners will be announced in October.
- Well.ca founder Ali Asaria was named one of the Guelph Mercury's "forty under forty -- people making a difference."
- Dalsa founder, chairman, and CTO Savvas Chamberlain was inducted as a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering at an awards ceremony in Montreal.
- Adel Sedra, dean of engineering at UW, has become a director of Dalsa. He succeeds Doug Barber, co-founder of Gennum, who had been on the board since 2005.
- LiveHive has partnered with Nissan to create "Nissan Make the Call" interactive games that will run online during CFL broadcasts through the season.
- HighJump Software is apparently cutting the size of its Waterloo office as part of a company-wide reorganization, following its acquisition by a VC/PE firm based in the Boston area. The company came to town through the acquisition of Waterloo's Global Beverage Group in 2006. At that time HighJump was part of 3M, which sold the business to Battery Ventures in May. Global Beverage Group was spun out of Descartes in 2000 after Descartes decided to recast itself as a pure web services business. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, HighJump plans to cut as much as a quarter of its workforce. The report says the company will focus on acquisitions for new products rather than creating them internally.
- LoyaltyMatch was featured in a story in the New York Times travel section. The story was about two companies with websites that allow users to use loyalty program points in new ways. I'm not sure the writer realized that both companies are from Southern Ontario. LoyaltyMatch was identified as a Waterloo company, and the other -- Points.com -- is based in Toronto.
posted by Gary Will at 1:29 AM
