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20 QUESTIONS OBJ looks back at the year in business with a trivia contest featuring plenty of memorable moments from 2014 > PAGES 16-17

December 22, 2014 Vol. 18, NO. 3

For daily business news visit obj.ca

Tweed co-founder Bruce Linton has been part of many companies in his two-decade career, but he says people who know him best never thought he’d be “the marijuana guy.” PHOTO BY COLE BURSTON

His business has gone to pot — in a good way

Serial entrepreneur Bruce Linton sees plenty of green in the future of his marijuana producer’s Smiths Falls plant — for consumers and investors alike

OBJ sits down for Q&A with Tweed CEO > PAGES 10-15

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FINANCE

DEAL OF THE YEAR

100 million reasons to smile The story behind 2014’s most successful public offering – the Kinaxis IPO

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

A

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fter launching Canada’s biggest tech IPO in the past four years – not to mention the country’s largest software-as-a-service public offering ever – Kinaxis is an easy choice for Ottawa’s finance deal of the year.

Kinaxis, which has its headquarters and R&D operations in the capital, specializes in cloud-based applications for supply chain management and sales and operations planning.

“I was pleased to accept the award on behalf of the company and the Kinaxis team. And I really want to stress it very much was a team effort,” says Kinaxis CFO Richard Monkman.

He adds the team included not only internal players, but also a very strong syndicate with the joint bookrunners of BMO and Canaccord Genuity, auditors KPMG, and Dentons, the company’s principal law firm.

“Everybody just stepped right up to the plate, with Kinaxis CFO Richard Monkman has plenty of reasons to smile after the firm’s $100-million IPO. PHOTO BY COLE BURSTON

this tight timeline, and executed,” says Mr. Monkman.

Going public was an option Kinaxis chose carefully.

“The company never needed to go public in so far as it was a profitable company and it had lots of cash on the balance sheets,” says David Wismer, managing director at BMO Capital Markets.

“In addition to that, there were very patient shareholders involved. So the combination of those three things meant that there was never an impetus or requirement to do something quickly.”

In the past year, however, conditions changed somewhat, with the company dramatically expanding its sales force and moving into additional verticals.

There were also shareholders willing to sell a portion of their ownership stakes, prompting a share buy-back and using a good portion of the existing cash balance.

The time seemed ripe for an IPO in early 2014, when Kinaxis gained

“Our road show wasn’t one many companies come out with. We have a story that we can pitch to the growth players and we have a story we can pitch to the value players. No one had seen this mix before.”

— KINAXIS CFO RICHARD MONKMAN

KINAXIS NUMBERS: Local employees: 170 Year founded: 1984 Key clients: Cisco, Qualcomm, Ford, Nikon 2011 revenues: $38 million 2013 revenues: $60.8 million Increase: 60 per cent 2014 Q3 revenues: $17.7 million Increase from 2013 Q3: 14 per cent 2014 Q3 profit: $2.5 million 2013 Q3 loss: $2.8 million

the prestigious position of market leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant assessment.

“We have that very strong industry

recognition,” says Mr. Monkman. “And we thought it would be very well coupled with the market recognition of being a public company.”

He says they started early on to “layer in the building blocks,” including such things as changing contracting practices, strengthening tax filing, preparing the banks and switching over to International Financial Reporting Standards.

“I’m of the view that you can never do enough planning to get ready for the IPO,” says Mr. Monkman.

The hard prep work only intensified in the weeks leading up to the public offering, when the team went on a “road show” to sell the Kinaxis story to investors.

“I was on the road with the management team, who did a great job meeting over 100 institutional investors, which is a gruelling couple of weeks. They were in 10 cities in 11 days,” says Mr. Wismer.

“You have to sleep when you can sleep,” Mr. Monkman says with a laugh,

describing long days of air travel and meetings.

But, he says, the hard work was worth it, and the Kinaxis message was wellreceived by investors.

“Here we are growing in the midtwenties per cent, we’re in technology, we’re absolutely a growth player … And we’re also generating and we have a track record of sustained profit,” he says.

“So our road show wasn’t one many companies come out with. We have a story that we can pitch to the growth players and we have a story we can pitch to the value players. No one had seen this mix before.”

As with any IPO, risk enters the picture.

“The period of time between you choosing to do the IPO and getting it done, what happens in the equity markets? In this particular case, there were unfortunately a couple of other software-as-a-service companies that began to trade poorly in and around the time we were marketing this IPO, so that was also a challenge,” says Mr. Wismer.

The drop in the SaaS index threw a wrench in their original plan to price the shares in the range of $14 to $16.

“We ended up pricing the IPO at 13 (dollars per share), but of course it’s traded up 40 per cent since then, so it’s been a real success,” Mr. Wismer says.

He says the strong demand for a recent secondary offering of common shares partly stems from some of those initial meetings now bearing fruit.

“Their outlook is very strong, consistent with what management said during the IPO as well as on subsequent investor calls,” says Mr. Wismer. “They have a big market opportunity in front of them and they have the leading solution in their market. They’re growing in new verticals, such as automotive and consumer packaged goods, to name a couple, and so their future looks quite bright.”

Mr. Monkman agrees.

“We’ve now issued two quarters, postIPO, and have exceeded expectations,” he says. — Alexia Naidoo, Special to OBJ

IT’S AWARDS TIME! Be Recognized as an Employer of Excellence

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TECH

DEAL OF THE YEAR

MITEL: 40 YEARS OF SUCCESS

The Mitel name was launched on June 8, 1973.

The company generated $300,000 in sales in its first year, growing that to revenues of more than $350 million just over a decade later.

World of possibilities opens up for Mitel

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

Already a major force in North America, the Ottawa business communications firm becomes No. 1 in Europe with acquisition of fellow Ontario tech giant Aastra

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$272.4 MILLION

Mitel’s revenues in the third quarter ended Sept. 30, eight months after it bought Aastra.

$135 MILLION

Mitel’s revenues in the third quarter a year earlier, before it acquired Aastra.

$569.5 MILLION

Mitel’s total revenues for the year ended Dec. 31, 2013. Aastra was at $588.9 million.

M

itel Network’s friendly acquisition of southern Ontario-based Aastra Technologies created a billion-dollar company with 60 million customers around the world, making it the city’s biggest tech deal this year. “(Mitel) started some 41 years ago as two entrepreneurs in a little strip mall in Kanata,” says Steve Spooner, Mitel’s chief financial officer. “To look at what the company is today with over $1.1 billion (US) in sales, over 3,000 employees, and being recognized as one of the top three or four players in the industry globally is something that as Ottawans we should all be very proud of.”

The two telecom equipment companies completed the cash-andstock deal worth $392 million on Jan. 31. At the time, Mitel said the acquisition would position it to cash in on what it called an $18-billion business communications market that is preparing to upgrade to cloud-based services.

Mitel president and CEO Richard McBee says Aastra’s strong presence in the Western European market made it an ideal partner.

“This was part of a very definite strategy,” he says. “We had a very strong footprint in North America and in the U.K. and we were looking for candidates that would round out Europe for us.”

Mr. McBee says Europe lags behind North America in using cloud technology, offering a golden opportunity for Mitel to move into a market where Aastra already has a large legacy installed base.

“That installed base of legacy equipment is going to change to nextgeneration equipment at some time,” he says. “Being No. 1 in Europe, in all of EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa), because of Aastra means we’re extremely well-positioned to take advantage of that when the market moves.”

In the shopping trip that led to the Aastra deal, Mitel looked for a company that was complementary from both geographical and cultural perspectives, offered an attractive combined solutions portfolio they could take to market, and had operating synergies that would help make the economics of the deal make sense for their shareholders.

“And with Aastra, we could tick all of those boxes,” says Mr. Spooner.

Mitel hired outside experts to do a cultural assessment of the top 200 people in both companies. “What came out of this evaluation, frankly, was they were amazed how aligned the cultures were,” says Mr. Spooner.

HIGH ON THE CLOUD

111%

Mitel’s cloud segment continues to expand rapidly, with year-over-year recurring seat growth of 111 per cent in the third quarter. For the first time ever, cloud sales represented more than 10 per cent of the company’s total revenue for a quarter, CEO Rich McBee said in November.

“We sprinted the first lap, now let’s pick up the pace.”

— RICHARD MCBEE, CEO AND PRESIDENT, MITEL

“M&A (mergers and acquisitions) is a little bit of science and a lot of art,” says Mr. McBee. “The art is making sure that the cultures are compatible, that the leaderships are compatible, and that people are ready for the merger or acquisition. You’re constantly cultivating that until you get to a point where you both feel really good about it and then the train starts moving pretty fast.”

Keeping the merger on track involved establishing clear accountability so “people know who’s on first,” says Mr. Spooner, “because we have to drive the business day to day while we’re integrating it.”

Mr. Spooner said communicating with channel partners and customers was also key to allaying any concerns about the plans for the portfolio.

“We run a very disciplined IMO (Integrated Management Office),” says Mr. McBee. “We do a lot of pre-planning, even before the deal closes. The idea is to make sure that we’re planning the work and that we’re communicating very well so there’s as little surprise as possible.”

Was the merger a profitable decision?

“Absolutely,” says Mr. Spooner.

“There’s an opportunity to eliminate duplicate spending, duplicate cost, and to drive attractive synergies through

areas such as the supply chain.

“We estimated that we could likely find $50 million of annualized cost synergies in the business once we had integrated the two businesses. And within three months, we increased that estimate to $75 million.”

Mr. McBee adds another benefit: “We’re getting invited to tenders that we would have never been invited to before.

We’re competing with some big boys out there, like Cisco and Avaya, so to actually be No. 1 in one of the major markets is really good.

“We’ve made it back into the Leader quadrant which, for me, I couldn’t be

more proud of our team who has made that happen. To be in (industry research and analysis firm) Gartner’s Unified Communications Leader quadrant, that shows the powerhouse that we’ve created on a global basis.”

And Mitel is clearly not done growing yet.

“We’ve got really good momentum right now. As I tell our team, ‘We sprinted the first lap, now let’s pick up the pace,’” Mr. McBee says with a laugh.

The company is keen on pursuing more M&A deals in upcoming laps – something its new billion-dollar-plus scale can facilitate.

“We have a strong mandate from our board and a good track record on delivering on successful acquisitions,” says Mr. Spooner. “A lot of companies are looking to Mitel and saying, ‘Hey, look at me. We think we’d do better having the might of a billion-dollar Mitel behind us.’ So that means more opportunities for Mitel to continue to be a consolidator.”

—Alexia Naidoo, Special to OBJ

2015

POST-BUDGET BREAKFAST The highly-anticipated federal budget will be released in a matter of weeks. What will it mean for business?

What will it mean for Canada? What will it mean for Ottawa?

Stay tuned for more information on this must-attend breakfast.

Watch ottawachamber.ca for event details.

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COMMENTARY An open letter to Eugene Melnyk With the NCC’s deadline for proposals to redevelop Lebreton Flats looming in January, Senators owner Eugene Melnyk made headlines earlier this month when he suggested he’d be open to the possibility of building a new arena for the NHL team at the site. The team at Inside Edge Properties, an Ottawa-based property management and real estate investment firm, wants Mr. Melnyk to know he’s not alone in thinking a move downtown would be a giant step in the right direction.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

Dear Mr. Melnyk,

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Lebreton Flats, once a bustling neighbourhood complete with residential housing and lively taverns, has stood largely empty for many years now, an unfinished project packed with potential.

It’s time LeBreton Flats made a comeback, Mr. Melnyk – and you are just the person to make it happen.

Your willingness to consider building a new arena at the downtown site is very encouraging. In a recent article in the Ottawa Citizen, a team spokesperson said the Senators “feel very strongly that this could only be possible with strong community support.”

Count us in, Mr. Melnyk!

At the end of September, the National Capital Commission announced it was seeking proposals to build a worldclass project at what it called the “most significant urban development site in Canada’s capital.” The NCC said it is looking for proposals for a total of 9.3 hectares of land on LeBreton Flats and will also accept proposals for an additional 12.3 hectares of what it calls “optional lands.”

The NCC calls it a prime strategic location for a signature attraction, one that must have “commercial, residential or recreational elements that would support its financial viability.” Although NCC chief executive Mark Kristmanson is hesitant to offer ideas, he did say the development “could include” an NHL arena.

Yes, it could.

Mr. Melnyk, there are some real possibilities here. Moving your (our!)

Ottawa Senators to the city core would bring them much closer to their east-end and Gatineau-area fans while providing a venue for other local festivals during the year – all within walking distance of the downtown core. And the light-rail transit Confederation Line’s Pimisi station will

Great River Media 250 City Centre Ave., Suite 500 Ottawa, Ontario, K1R 6K7 obj.ca PUBLISHER Michael Curran, 238-1818 ext. 228 publisher@obj.ca SENIOR VICE-PRESIDENT OF SALES Don Mersereau, 238-1818 ext. 286 CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER Terry Tyo, 238-1818 ext. 268 EDITOR, PRINT CONTENT David Sali, 238-1818 ext. 269 david@greatriver.ca EDITOR, ONLINE CONTENT Tom Pechloff, 238-1818 ext. 291 editor@obj.ca COPY EDITOR Krystle Kung CREATIVE DIRECTOR Tanya Connolly-Holmes, 238-1818 ext. 253 creative@obj.ca ART DEPARTMENT Jamie Dean, 238-1818 ext. 278 jamie@greatriver.ca Regan VanDusen, 238-1818 ext. 254 regan@obj.ca ADVERTISING SALES Wendy Baily, 238-1818 ext. 244 wbaily@obj.ca Kimberley Allen-McGill, 238-1818 ext. 299 kimberley@obj.ca Karen McNamara, 238-1818 ext. 259 karen@obj.ca

stop right at your front door.

We know what you are thinking, Mr. Melnyk: “We just finished renovations and added extra capacity – the Canadian Tire Centre still has as much as 30 years of life in it.”

You are absolutely right – and you can take advantage of that. Why not turn it into a first-rate shopping destination?

Maple Leaf Gardens now houses a muchneeded Loblaws Superstore in downtown Toronto.

Remember the historic Montreal Forum? That is now a popular spot with theatres, shops and restaurants. And the new Bell Centre that replaced the iconic home of the Habs sparked new development all around it, including a condominium tower and the soonto-open 26-storey Deloitte Tower that includes almost a half-million square feet of office space and 20,000 square feet of retail space. Similar development at Lebreton Flats could spur new projects unlike any the capital has seen in the recent past.

Ottawa’s population is projected to grow by 37 per cent over the next 15 years. This bodes well for both a shopping complex in Kanata and a firstclass attraction downtown.

Clustered with the new 75-store Tanger Outlets complex right off Hwy. 417

and a huge new Bass Pro Shop nearby, the new Kanata shopping venue at the CTC could also offer plenty of parking.

The retail market in Ottawa is hot right now, Mr. Melnyk. Highlighting that are the influx of major new retailers and the ongoing expansions of both the Rideau Centre and the Bayshore Shopping Centre. The timing for the redevelopment of Lebreton couldn’t be better.

Foreign Minister John Baird seems to be onside, too. While the Ottawa MP won’t come right out and say the Sens’ moving downtown is a good idea, earlier this month he told local media, “I’ve travelled quite a bit and I’ve never seen a major sports arena in the middle of nowhere.”

He said recently his government’s “only desire is to see excellence” at the site. “We’ve got to set the bar very high.

We don’t have the opportunity many times in the capital to reinvigorate and build something extraordinary.”

So build something extraordinary, Mr. Melnyk. It can be done. As a community builder and a man of vision, you are just the kind of person who can do it.

Are you up for the challenge?

Sincerely, Inside Edge Properties

Susan Salsbury, 238-1818 ext. 229 ssalsbury@obj.ca CAREER ADVERTISING & MARKETPLACE ADVERTISING SALES 238-1818 ext. 251 VICE-PRESIDENT OF OTTAWA BUSINESS EVENTS Susan Blain, 238-1818 ext. 232 susan@ottawabusinessevents.ca FINANCE Jackie Whalen, 238-1818 ext. 250 jackie@greatriver.ca SUBSCRIPTIONS/DISTRIBUTION 238-1818 ext. 248 subscribe@obj.ca PRINTED BY Transcontinental Qualimax 130 Adrien-Robert, Parc Industriel Richelieu Gatineau, QC J8Y 3S2

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Q&A

GOING TO POT: Medical marijuana a growing enterprise Tweed might be the most well-known medical marijuana operation in the capital region, but it’s not the only one. Gatineau-based Hydropothecary received its production licence from Health Canada earlier this month, joining 14 other firms across the country which are now allowed to grow and sell medical pot.

High hopes

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

In its first year of operation, Smiths Falls-based medical marijuana grower Tweed has been creating quite a buzz – and not just among the users of its product.

Co-founder Bruce Linton sat down for a year-end chat with OBJ about everything from why being a graduate of Carleton University has made him a better entrepreneur to how his company has become the symbol of a struggling eastern Ontario city’s economic resurgence.

OBJ.CA

10 Entrepreneur Bruce Linton’s latest venture, medical marijuana producer Tweed, is putting the “high” in high tech. PHOTO BY COLE BURSTON

“The comment back from everybody who knows me is, ‘There’s a lot of things we thought you might get into, but we never thought you’d be the marijuana guy.’ When you’re dealing with financial markets, what they really want to know is if you’re thinking about the business. Having not been a consumer of the product has probably helped.”

— TWEED CO-FOUNDER BRUCE LINTON

OBJ: You have quite a resume.

Did you ever think when you were president of Carleton’s students’ association that one day you’d wind up becoming a (legitimate) pot dealer?

BL: I think when you went to Carleton, you had to figure out how to start things, create things, because there wasn’t a lineup of people waiting to hire you. You better get in and dig. I’m not sure it’s a resume or a habit of method.

The comment back from everybody who knows me is, ‘There’s a lot of things we thought you might get into, but we never thought you’d be the marijuana guy.’ (Smiles.) Really, it is a business because of the supply chain. But as far as the content (goes), I’m probably one of the least knowledgeable people who went to Carleton. Ultimately, I’m not sure that’s a liability, at least not with the financial markets. They like to know what you’re thinking about the opportunity, not the content only. And there’s a lot of really good content people out there (chuckles).

OBJ: Where do you come up with your product names?

BL: The people who originally named marijuana strains went from things like Ghost Town Haze to AK-47 to Green Crack. All these names are street names. So we treat those as the Latin name, if you will, for the product, and what we do is pick strain names that reflect the Tweed branding. The majority of our patients are people who are in their 50s or maybe 60s.

They could be suffering from arthritis or Parkinson’s or have chronic pain from a car or industrial accident, and they’re trying to quit using opiates or trying to quit using sleeping pills or whatever other medicines that are principally going through their liver.

As they quit using those, they’re going to start using the Tweed product. And when they tell their friends and family what they’re using, we thought it’s much easier for them to say, ‘Buddy, the strain I’m using from Tweed, has really helped my arthritis’ versus saying, ‘AK-47’s really good s--t.’

That is important because your patients have to become your promoters. If you don’t give them a vocabulary where they can confidently describe what they’re using to other people, I’m pretty sure most of them aren’t going to be comfortable describing the AK-47 as ‘good s--t’ vs. the quality product that’s benefited them named Buddy.

OBJ: Fair enough. So how do you come up with the brand names?

THE LINTON FILE Age: 48

April 2013 -present CEO and managing director, Martello Technologies December 2012 -present Chairman and cofounder, Tweed Inc. January 2005 -November 2013 Board of directors, Clearford Industries Inc. 2001-January 2009 Board of directors, Sitebrand April 2002 -January 2005 Re-founder and general manager, ComputerLand.ca 1999-2001 Co-founder, WebHancer 1993-99 Director, Asia Pacific/VP finance, CrossKeys Corp.

1992-93 Government liaison, Newbridge Networks May 1989-May 1990 President, Carleton University Students’ Association

BL: We can’t advertise, but we can interact (with customers).

Social media allows us to ask everybody who cares, ‘What would you call it?’ Which then creates more of an audience participation, which is important when you can’t buy advertising.

OBJ: Where did the name Tweed come from?

BL: We used a couple of marketing agencies (Acart Communications and McMillan) at the beginning. The thought was you have to have a name that has some value and duration. We looked at many. We were almost Can Remedy. But ultimately one of the agencies came back and said, ‘This name we think would be a good one, except the dot-com isn’t available.’ So we had to get the dot-com and it wasn’t particularly expensive. I was a presenter at a conference in Las Vegas about three weeks ago, and I would hazard a guess that Tweed, as a producer of medical marijuana, is probably the best-recognized brand globally. The number of people who knew Tweed – and, of course, I’m wearing the tweed shirt and have the tweed coat and tweed everything – who came up and wanted to find ways to interact was amazing. It really caught on.

Smart people like smart brands, and Tweed has that double entendre which really can work.

If you think the market capital of a company with almost no revenues initially – like, zero when we went public – quickly soared in excess of $100 million, it was principally because social media and the media at large carried the story over and over again. It was a name you could remember.

OBJ: The government won’t allow you to advertise. But if you could, what would your slogan be?

BL: Really, what Tweed’s about is the experience for the client.

It’s about approachability, it’s about a conversation you feel comfortable having. The confidence to express you’re working with us is kind of where we’re coming from. So I imagine if we could advertise, it would be about that – it wouldn’t be a picture of a leaf.

11 OBJ.CA

OBJ: What was the reaction of investors when you told them what you wanted money for?

BL: It’s funny. It’s like going up a set of stairs, if you will. The first step was a bit challenging because what we were really saying to people is, would you invest in something where we’re going to spend all the money we get from you to build out a facility that we think is correct – the government’s giving us some guidance – but we won’t have a licence until they come by with a clipboard and inspect it.

And if we’re wrong, it’s going to be a really expensive place to grow tomatoes or something. So that first group actually just took a complete blind leap. The harder raise was the second amount of money to come in in late 2013 because those people were kind of in a halfway-there-but-notfinished (situation). So that was very challenging. Plus, by the end of 2013, everybody was thinking that next year will be better for mining, next year will be better for these other activities, and they were thinking about saving their money to do something in 2014. As soon as we got to 2014, everybody realized that selling gold stocks and things is not going to work. So they quickly turned to what’s hot. All of a sudden, we went from being an uninteresting topic to people running at us with cash.

OBJ: Did that surprise you?

BL: I can tell you that on Christmas Day last year, I spent several hours on the phone with investment bankers. On (December) 26th, we closed a round where we bought the building on the 27th at 11 in the morning, and the financing round didn’t close until 3 in the afternoon.

So for about four hours I was the proud owner of a very large factory with no certainty that there was going to be a business that had cash to operate in it. So it did surprise me, because it was really, really challenging to close that financing in 2013. I won’t say it was easy, but we certainly had a lot of interest in the 2014 activities.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

OBJ: What was it that originally attracted you to this business?

BL: You know, it was just having time to actually read the papers.

I had a bit more quiet time in Q2, Q3 of 2012. It was really evident that the police chiefs of the country hated the old system, and when you started digging in, the obvious thing was that the Conservatives were going to change the system because they like the police. When you started to understand what the change was going to be, it was going to be to turn into an institutional delivery system that which had been a cottage-based system. None of the cottage-based participants, or few of them, appeared likely to be able to step in and participate, which meant all of a sudden, there’s going to be no real incumbent supplier.

Even more exciting for me was that the government was no longer going to be part of the process of deciding who could have access.

It was going to the physicians and their patients. I couldn’t believe that everybody wasn’t trying to start one of these. You start to wonder, ‘Are we wrong?’ Because a number of people said, ‘How would that look on your resume?’ That to me was more encouraging than anything.

(Laughs.) It really was about supplychain disruption and government exiting the approval process.

OBJ: One of your most important jobs is to raise capital.

Talk about that process.

BL: The initial budget of how much money we needed to get started had one of the digits correct – it had a two in it. So about $2 million. But in fact it turned out we needed 14 times more cash than the initial estimate – $28 million was about the right number. It was a much more significant undertaking, just because the rules, when they came out, required a great deal more depth on security. We went with a much bigger footprint than had been originally planned. When you enter the Hershey factory, it is a big factory.

It was a fairly active end of 2013, first quarter 2014.

OBJ Back Page Nov2014_Layout 1 2014-10-31 4:59 PM Page 1

Digital fingerprinting is the new standard for obtaining a certified criminal record check in Canada. Since July 1st, 2014, ink prints can no longer be mailed to the RCMP for processing.

Fingerprints provide 100% proof of identity to conduct a criminal record check, which is why digital fingerprints will replace name and date of birth-based criminal record checks over the next few years.

In fact, digital fingerprints are already a mandatory requirement for a number of application processes.

Commissionaires Ottawa has been providing digital fingerprinting, criminal background checks, pre-employment screening and related ID Services since 2006.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

Protect your business.

Protect your people.

OBJ.CA

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Reasons everyday citizens may need fingerprints: • Pre-employment screening • Immigration and citizenship • Foreign travel, visas, work permits, etc.

• Record suspension (pardon) applications • US Entry Waivers • International adoption • Name changes • Security clearances • Student co-op placements • Volunteer work

Three convenient digital fingerprinting, pre-employment screening and related services in the National Capital Region: Commissionaires Ottawa (HQ/QG) 24, ch. Colonnade Rd, Ottawa (ON) K2E 7J6 Tel: 613-231-6462, ext. 451

Commissionaires Ottawa (Centretown/Centre-ville) 100, rue Gloucester Street, Ottawa (ON) K2P 0A4 Tel : 613-288-0721

Commissionnaires (Gatineau) 721, boul. St-Joseph, Gatineau (QC) J8Y 4B6 Tél : 819-776-0004, poste 2 ou 5

Toll free/Sans frais: 1-877-322-6777 E-mail/courriel: idservices@commissionaires-ottawa.on.ca ■ Website/Site Internet: www.commissionaires-ottawa.on.ca

Q&A

According to Health Canada, about 1,400 kilograms — or 1.4 million grams — of medical marijuana were sold by licensed producers between Jan. 1 and Oct. 31. Tweed contributed roughly 72,000 grams to that total from its first harvest in May to the end of September, for sales of just over $500,000.

Tweed: A beginner’s guide Tweed currently lists 25 marijuana strains at its online store, each with two names: the street name (or “Latin name,” as Mr. Linton likes to refer to it) and the Tweed brand name. Prices range from $5 per gram for Buddy (aka L.A. Confidential) to $12 for High Lands (aka East Coast Sour Diesel). Each has a different mix of two key active ingredients – tetrahydrocannabinol (commonly known as THC, the psychoactive component) and cannabidiol (CDB, which acts as a painkiller) – depending on the desired effect.

For example, Herringbone – known on the street as AK-47 – has a THC concentration of 17 per cent. According to the Tweed site, it “will leave you mellow and relaxed, with some describing it as a social strain leaving the user more care free.” High Lands, by contrast, has a higher THC ratio of 21 per cent. Tweed says its effects “are often euphoric and happy ... Some say it can also act as a natural aphrodisiac.”

So what’s in a name? Here is the company’s product menu, with each strain’s brand name, followed by the street name:

•

OBJ: Have you had any issues with security, the police, etc., so far?

BL: I wouldn’t say we have issues. What

we have is frequent visitors. We’re a highly regulated entity, meaning regulated for security clearance by the RCMP, regulated

by Health Canada on a two-week to four-week basis, annual licence renewals, municipal bylaws we need to be compliant with, odour bylaws, all kinds of rules. But so far, we’ve been aware of the rules and have been able to stay on the right side of them. But boy, oh boy, there are a lot of considerations when you’re in a business that’s so regulated and such a startup.

Everything has to be considered (from the perspective of) how will this affect our operational compliance before we do it – I mean anything from what nutrients you might want to introduce to whether or not you change the password on a door.

Sometimes you get really lucky. The fact that the police station is directly across the road from Tweed, I think that’s terrific. It is a visible fact, I would suspect, for people who might think about doing something dumb like trying to break in. But it also means that in the event that someone did, response time is measured in seconds. It worked out just right.

OBJ: You’re interim CEO right now.

How’s the search going for a new boss?

BL: We’re down to the final few candidates.

No certainty that we’ll close with one of them

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• • • • • • • • • • •

Argyle (Nordle) Bakerstreet (Hindu Kush) Balmoral (UK Cheese) Birds Eye (Jack Herer) Bogart (OG Kush) Buddy (L.A. Confidential) Cheviot (Black Widow) Clarence (Chocolope) Clearwater (Kali Mist) Donegal (Chem Dawg) Fox Hunt (G13) Herringbone (AK-47) High Lands (East Coast Sour Diesel) Houndstooth (Super Lemon Haze) Leonidas (Super Silver Haze) Milton (Cocoa Kush) Norfolk (Bubba Kush) Nova (Pennywise) Princeton (Ghost Train Haze) Sixty Three (Chocolate Chunk) Twilling (Deep Purple) Wales (Space Bomb) Weaver (Kosher Kush) Westwood (Plushberry) Yorkshire (Headband)

OBJ: Have you ever sampled your product?

BL: (Smiles.) I don’t have a licence, because I don’t have any basis to have a licence, so I haven’t. We have a whole customer committee, and they have a sixpage process where they analyze everything about the product from the coloration to the smell to how it affects them to how it packs. We have many patients who work for us as employees, and we have many outside who are quite helpful and supportive. When you’re dealing with financial markets, what they really want to know is if you’re thinking about the business. To date, having not been a consumer of the product has probably helped. If you’re selling wine, you go can there. But if you’re selling opiates, as maybe our competitor product might be, that wouldn’t be a normal thing for the CEO to say, ‘These opiates are awesome. I’m using lots of them right now, and I’m super happy.’

OBJ: Mayor Dennis Staples was even quoted in the New York Times.

BL: I think he now is at either 59 or 60 interviews about Smiths Falls, all of which have been positive. Prior to this, Smiths Falls had been the subject of a lot of interviews, but they were about Hershey shutting, about the Rideau Regional Centre shutting – not positive stories. I’ve been saying for a year or two, this is a town that has everything required to be successful except the, I’ll call it, commerce platform. They have a great new hospital, they have a great new infrastructure and water system, they have a terrific new community centre and hockey rink, they have a downtown core that’s very interesting and they have a very, very low cost of purchasing a home or renting a building. We could end up with something that’s like a campus of activities at that plant. You can buy a house in Smiths Falls and have change out of a hundred grand.

So if you’re a startup, you’re an artist, you’re someone who is a creator and you want to move to a community, that’s pretty good.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

• • • • • • • • • • • • •

Tweed has enough room to grow up to 15 million grams of pot annually. PHOTOS BY COLE BURSTON

OBJ: Speaking of that, why Smiths Falls?

BL: At the very beginning of the process, in order to get a licence you have to have the support of the municipality and no dissent from the police force or the fire department.

What you’re doing is showing up in a town where people may or may not know you, presenting to council in an in-camera session the request that you be allowed to grow marijuana in the biggest building in town. And that has to get a positive response.

The reason we chose Smiths Falls is its bylaws permitted agricultural activities inside the (former Hershey) building because it used to take raw milk and make chocolate.

There were only two jurisdictions in all of eastern Ontario that had bylaws that didn’t need to be amended for us to do this in an industrial building. The second reason was, the building had been empty for five years, and on two occasions, the owner of the building had asked (council), ‘Could we please knock it down? It’s too costly to keep up.’ It was going to be knocked down if (council) didn’t like us. So the chances of them liking us were pretty good. We’ve now probably become corporate citizen No. 1 in Smiths Falls. The (company) rule is, everything we can buy (for supplies) in and around Smiths Falls must be bought there.

All the labour for the construction comes from town. Everything we do in terms of fundraising goes to the food bank or other charities, and we do a lot of that. In one year, we’ve gone from, ‘Who are these guys?’ to being asked to be the keynote speaker at the chamber of commerce annual conference.

Q&A

“For Tweed, you picture as big an outcome as you can possibly create, and now we’re hiring the people who can make that a higher probability than just dreaming. It’s a good start. The next year will define the angle at which we’re aiming up. Right now, it’s pretty vertical. This could be a very big company. ” — BRUCE LINTON

… it’s a bit like telecom was in the mid-’90s, where these people with unbelievable careers and resumes and experience were applying to startups. They were all wanting to be part of it because they could see that for the foreseeable future, the telecom startup was going to be hot. We have had people applying who’ve been running companies of a billion, billion and a half dollars. We’ve had people running brands that you would go, ‘Really?’ from all the big names. Because people recognize that probably the most interesting job in Canada or North America over the next three years is going to be building potentially the biggest medical marijuana company, seeing potential legalization with the next election, doing mergers and acquisitions so that this company can become a billion-dollar enterprise. And that could all happen over the next three years.

OBJ: A billion-dollar company? That’s a pretty bold statement.

BL: We’ve done nothing to be a $100-million (company). We just started. And if you look at the sector, the number of potential patients, the number of ways the legislation could change, there’s a lot of demand here. We have a baby-boomer society that probably are going to start thinking that all these pills metabolizing through their livers isn’t what they want, and they want a quality of life. And despite the fact they told their children never to touch marijuana, they might have. So there’s going to be a really robust market for this kind of offering to deal with aging.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

Tweed’s employee count varies between about 70 and 95, depending on the time of year. PHOTOS BY COLE BURSTON

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OBJ: You’ve talked about breaking into the European market. Do you think that will be viable?

BL: Canada has actually crushed it in terms of taking the best perspective and turning it into our legislation on how you produce, deliver, manage, measure – everything about marijuana. So I think you’re going to see our framework largely turning up with some alterations, from the Czech Republic to Albania, South Africa to parts of South America. So the opportunity to take our methods of compliance, our practices and protocols, and if you will franchise those into abandoned factories in other jurisdictions, that seems pretty likely.

OBJ: You’ve been involved in a lot of startups. I guess that’s where you get your high, so to speak.

BL: (Laughs.) I like the second-year startups way more than the first. The first year you’re so actively busy with things necessary so you can do what you want to do, but you’re not actually doing the business. Whether it’s the leasing of the facility, raising capital, stupid things like what chairs you’ll have, those things always consume the whole first year.

The second year is actually much more fun, because you get to see the business come out of those efforts. You almost have to endure the first year so you can enjoy the second. I feel pretty excited for 2015, because it’s two

Each of Tweed’s secure growing rooms is lit for 12 hours a day. PHOTO BY COLE BURSTON

companies that get to do the fun year now.

OBJ: What is the most fun about it?

BL: To me, the part that’s most fantastic is hearing customer feedback. In both those companies, we’re now actively hearing customer feedback. So you can keep taking that and aiming everything you’re doing in the company based on a more specific understanding of the end goal. Whereas in the beginning year, you have to do a lot of interaction with potential clients, but you have nothing you can give them and nothing they can give feedback on.

OBJ: Any thoughts about what’s going to happen down the road for you personally?

RickEvans EvanscPa, cPa, ca Rick ca BL: Well, we have this surplus space which cPa(california), aBv, cFF, cva, cFE cPa(california), aBv, cFF, cva, cFE Rick Evans cPa, ca PREsidEnt is about two-thirds of the Hershey plant, PREsidEnt cPa(california), aBv, cFF, cva, cFE and it has a massive dairy infrastructure PREsidEnt that Hershey left. So I don’t see why I haven’t Rick Evans cPa, ca Rick Evans Rick Evans cPa, ca cPa, ca cPa(california), aBv, cFF, cva, cFE been approached by people who are Rick Evans cPa, ca Rick EvansaBv, cPa, ca cva, cFE cPa(california), cFF, cPa(california), cFF, cva, cFE PREsidEnt cPa(california), aBv, cFF,cPa(california), cva, cFE aBv, cFF, aBv, cva, cFE thinking about being a cheesemaker or a PREsidEnt PREsidEnt PREsidEnt PREsidEnt dairy products maker. We would take that Providingbusiness businessvaluation, valuation,forensic forensicaccounting accounting Providing infrastructure – which is probably 12 or 15 and litigation support in matters pertaining Providing business valuation, forensic and accounting litigation support in matters pertaining toto million dollars of six-year-old equipment all and litigation support in matters pertaining to in top shape for turning milk into whatever • Succession planning • Succession planning Providing business valuation, forensic account we want – and co-branding it across the Providing business valuation, forensic• • accounting Shareholder disputes • Succession planning Shareholder disputes forensic accounting and litigation support in matters pertaining to Providing business valuation, forensic accounting Tweed platform. If you made stuff thatProviding tasted business valuation, and litigation support in matters pertaining toEstate planning Shareholder disputes • • to Estate planning and litigation support • and in matters pertaining litigation support to in matters pertaining good and you really wanted to eat sometimes Corporate reorganization • Estate planning • • Corporate reorganization and it was right beside the biggest producer • Succession planning • Succession planning • Litigation support Providing business valuation, forensic accounting • • Corporate reorganization • Litigation support of marijuana possibly in the world, I think • Succession planning • Shareholder disputes Succession planning • Shareholder disputes • Mergers and acquisitions • Litigation support • matters Mergers and acquisitions chocolate chunk might be green chunks • Shareholder disputes • pertaining Estate planning • and Shareholder disputes litigation support in to Estate planning Family law matters • • • Mergers and acquisitions • • Family law matters of chocolate. I just need somebody who • Estate planning • Corporate reorganization Estate planning Corporate reorganization • • • Family law matters understands how to make milk into stuff, • Corporate reorganization Litigation support Corporate reorganization tact t• uuss: :613 613-2-23 366-2-23 360 60o or r • Litigation support ccoonntac because the asset is there. I really do believe • Litigation support • Mergers and acquisitions • • • Litigation support Succession planning R E v a n s @ m c caayydduuFFFF. c . coomm Mergers and acquisitions R E v a n s @ m c c c o n tac t u s : 613 -2 3 6 -2 3 60 o r it’ll be the best thing for the community.

15 • We’ve Mergers and acquisitions • Family law matters • • Mergers and acquisitions R E v• a Family law matters n s @ Shareholder disputes m cc ay d u F F.co m just got to find a little time to get it done.

• Family law matters • Family law matters MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

c o n tac t u s : 613 -2 3 6 -2 3 60 o r • Estate planning RE vans@mcc a d F Fs.@ c Corporate reorganization o R yEwww.mdvaluations.com v• u an mm cc ay d u F F.co m • Litigation support www.mdvaluations.com • Mergers and acquisitionswww.mdvaluations.com c o n tac t u s : 613 -2 3 6 -2 3 60 o r

OBJ.CA

OBJ: You’re also CEO of a software firm, Martello Technologies. What’s your plan for the next few years?

BL: For Tweed, you picture as big an outcome as you can possibly create, and now we’re hiring the people who can make that a higher probability than just dreaming.

It’s a good start. The next year will define the angle at which we’re aiming up. Right now, it’s pretty vertical. We’ve got a lot of things to execute. But this could be a very big company. And Martello is in this mode where our big partner (Mitel) just keeps getting bigger by buying everybody. So that one’s exciting. They’re a billion-plus (company), they’ve got gear everywhere on the planet and I bet they’re not done buying. Both of them, it’s kind of fun to think about the next year because it’s more about realizing the opportunity than trying to figure out if there is one. The number of times I get asked how the two companies relate, and I explain they’re both in high-tech. They just have different (meaning) on ‘high.’ You can

actually see these are two macro trends: the idea that people want to have medical alternatives to dealing with what ails them, not in a curing process, but in managing the pain, and the fact that what we’re doing in the west end of Ottawa (at Martello) is now transitioning from selling people bits of equipment to becoming a subscription for the world to get their services. Those two trends are pretty dramatic, and they’re both global. I really like that Ottawa has some perspective on the next waves coming out.

WWW.MDVALUATIONS.COM www.mdvaluations.com — Interview by David Sali R E va n s @m cc ay d u F F.co m con tac t u s : 613 -2 3 6n-2 3 60 our s : 613 cRo E vtac a n ts @ m c c-2 a 3y6d-2u3 60 F F .ocr o mwww.mdvaluations.com

TRIVIA

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TAKE THE OBJ QUIZ AND WIN!

Who doesn’t love a trivia contest? OBJ is inviting readers to click here to submit their answers to the quiz below. Winners will be randomly drawn on Jan. 31. The package of great prizes, valued at $1,000, includes tickets to a Senators game, restaurant gift certificates, tickets to business events and an OBJ Book of Lists database package. Good luck! (See page 19 for answers.)

Questions about 2014 From high finance to football, OBJ looks back at the year that was in local business while putting our readers’ knowledge to the test

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In January 2014, this Ottawa company inked a deal that pushed its annual revenues to remarkable heights by local standards. Its CEO commented: “With this merger the combined annual revenue exceeds a billion dollars, which we believe creates the financial scale and operational leverage to drive shareholder value and profitable growth.” q Alcatel q Mitel q Corel q Cisco

TAKE THIS QUIZ ONLINE:

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CLICK HERE

OBJ’s 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Wes Nicol and his wife Mary made headlines in September, when they kicked off a fundraising campaign with a $10-million donation to build a new home for which post-secondary institution’s business school? q University of Ottawa q La Cite collegiale q Carleton University q Algonquin College

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

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In March, this Ottawa-based retailer continued its western expansion in Ontario with a new 27,000-square-foot store in London. Later in the year came an announcement that two more London stores, employing 260 people, would open in spring 2015. “I’d say within 3-5 years, we’ll have 10 stores down there,” said its CEO. q Giant Tiger q Farm Boy q Quickie Convenience Stores q Metro

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q SurveyMonkey q Salesforce.com q Squarespace

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This operator of boutique hotels officially broke ground in February for a new 148-room, 17-storey hotel under its ALT brand as part of a mixeduse building that developer Broccolini will construct at 199 Slater St. It came one day after Minto Properties said it planned to convert its Minto Suite Hotel on Lyon Street to residential suites. q Group Germain q ARC The.Hotel q Hazelton Hotel q Hotel Quintessence

This Palo Alto-based software-asa-service company made its first foray into Ottawa in August when it acquired Fluidware, a local startup established in 2008 by Eli Fathi and Aydin Mirzaee. The deal was a milestone This San Francisco-based ridefor the California acquisitor because it sharing service officially announced meant, for the first time, close to half of its its arrival in Ottawa in October by revenue was generated outside the U.S. posting a picture of its first customer, q SAP Senators defenceman Cody Ceci. Since

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public on the Toronto Venture Exchange in April. q Big Buzz Ltd. q CanniMed q The Hydropothecary q Tweed

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This e-commerce company moved into its new, state-ofthe-art, 102,000-square-foot headquarters at Performance Court on Elgin Street in mid-October, cementing its status as downtown Ottawa’s leading software firm. Company founder Tobias Lütke was named CEO of the Year at the Best Ottawa Business Awards last month. q CENX q Fluidware q Kivuto q Shopify

This partnership of five local businessmen realized a dream that was years in the making this past July when the expansion Ottawa RedBlacks took the field at TD Place, marking the Canadian Football League’s return to the capital nearly a decade after the Ottawa Renegades folded in 2005.

The building formerly known as q The Capital Football Fanatics the Ottawa Convention Centre q The Lansdowne Entertainment Co. changed its name in October q The Ottawa Football Club Inc. after signing a 10-year naming rights q The Ottawa Sports and Entertainment deal with a telecommunications service Group provider. Which company earned the right to put its name on the downtown One of the five members of this meeting facility? group actually played football q Bell at Carleton University before q Rogers embarking on a successful career in real q Shaw estate development. He later spearheaded q Telus the drive to resurrect the Ravens’ football program with private funding, and was This firm – the second-largest rewarded when his alma mater defeated life-sciences company in the archrival uOttawa Gee-Gees in this the city with more than 400 fall’s Panda Game. Who is he? employees – is now in foreign hands q Roger Greenberg after being acquired by Illinois-based q Jeff Hunt Sterigenics in June for $800 million q John Pugh in cash. The deal followed months of q John Ruddy negotiations between the two companies after an earlier offer failed to gain the Mayor Jim Watson vowed required two-thirds support of which during his successful reOttawa firm’s shareholders? election campaign this fall q Abbott Point of Care to bring a “hat trick” of major events q DNA Genotek to the capital in 2017, the year Canada q Nordion will celebrate its 150th birthday. Which q Spartan Bioscience of these events is NOT among those the mayor has publicly said he hopes to Eugene Haslam, the owner of an attract? iconic downtown nightclub that q The Grey Cup has been visited by the likes of the q The Juno Awards Rolling Stones, generated plenty of social q The men’s world curling media chatter in September when he told championship OBJ he was putting the Byward Market q An outdoor NHL game between the club up for sale.Which longstanding live Senators and Montreal Canadiens music joint does he own? q Cafe Dekcuf In July, the city of Ottawa was q Mercury Lounge chosen to host this major q The Rainbow international gathering q Zaphod Beeblebrox of youth from around the world in 2016, beating out the likes of Hong This law firm, whose Kong, Bangkok and Kobe, Japan. roster of talent included The conference, which has attracted former prime minister luminaries such as Archbishop Jean Chretien, changed Ottawa’s Desmond Tutu and Sir Richard Branson legal landscape in February when in the past, is expected to generate at it announced it was winding up its least $2 million in economic activity. operations in the capital, triggering a q International Youth Parliament mass exodus of lawyers to other firms. q One Young World q Borden Ladner Gervais q World Scout Jamboree q Dentons Canada q World University Games q Gowling Lafleur Henderson q Heenan Blaikie

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February. The group signed a lease of up to 20 years with the National Capital Commission, which owns the land, with high hopes of turning around the money-losing facility.

Capital Golf Centre Loch March The Meadows Pine View Golf Course

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MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

This local builder’s $1-billion plan for a mixed-use residential and commercial development at Albert and Chaudiere Islands got the green light from Ottawa and Gatineau councils this then, the controversial business, which is year, despite some residents’ concerns not licensed to operate in the city and has about it being built on sacred aboriginal been banned in many other municipalities land. around the world, has been slapped with q Minto Group dozens of charges for operating an illegal q Tamarack Developments taxi service. q Urbandale Corporation q Hailo q Windmill Developments q Lyft q Uber This Ottawa producer of q Sidecar supply chain management software made headlines for its In January, this Byward Market $100-million initial public offering on the restaurant and bar became the first Toronto Stock Exchange this summer – Ottawa establishment to install an the largest tech IPO in Canada in 2014.

ATM for Bitcoins, the digital currency q Halogen that created a stir in the finance world q Kinaxis when one of its major exchanges, Mt. Gox, q QNX Software collapsed early in 2014. q Shopify q Blue Cactus Bar and Grill q Clocktower Brew Pub This Smiths Falls-based medical q Empire Grill marijuana grower put the “high” q The Heart and Crown in high-tech earlier this year when it released its first batch of product This 36-hole golf course had been to consumers. Investors were clearly managed by the City of Ottawa hooked on the company’s potential – the for four decades until it was taken firm’s market capitalization topped $100 over by a group of local investors in midmillion less than a month after it went

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EVENTS

Who are Ottawa’s startups to watch?

Visit OBJ.CA and click on Special Reports.

Celebrating the holidays At OBE’s biggest Xmas party, a good time was had by all

A

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

fter another year of driving the city’s economy, Ottawa business leaders got a chance to work on something a little less serious on Dec. 11 – their dance moves.

Ottawa Business Events held its second annual edition of Ottawa’s Biggest Office Christmas Party, which drew about 400 festive folks to the Shaw Centre for a night of great food and entertainment.

Some companies brought up to 50 people to the event, which let partygoers kick up their heels and do some networking in a fun, relaxed environment, all while celebrating the season and raising money for the Christmas Cheer Foundation.

“It’s an opportunity for companies big and small to come together for the holidays, network and, most importantly, have some fun,” said Susan Blain, vice-president of Ottawa Business Events. “I know networking and fun don’t often go together, but this is one time they do.”

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The business community had a chance to kick up its heels at Ottawa’s Biggest Office Christmas Party on Dec. 11. PHOTOS BY MARK HOLLERON

EVENTS TRIVIA

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Looking for local business data?

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FROM PAGES 16-17

1 Mitel 2 Carleton University 3 Farm Boy 4 SurveyMonkey 5 Group Germain 6 Uber 7 Clocktower Brew Pub 8 Pine View Golf Course 9 Windmill Developments 10 Kinaxis 11 Tweed 12 The Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group 13 John Ruddy 14 The men’s world curling championship 15 One Young World 16 Shopify 17 Shaw 18 Nordion 19 Zaphod Beeblebrox 20 Heenan Blaikie.

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