Local telecom experts display market savvy By Andy Riga Reprinted from the Montreal Gazette
Entrepreneurs founded fibre-optic company, sold to a US giant at the peak of high tec euphoria, and recently bought it back 24
Jacques Lèvesque, Mike Kennah and John Graham are experts in sinking telecoms assets, literally and figuratively. The owners of Canada’s only installer of underwater fibre-optic cables sold their Kirkland firm to a US giant at the peak of high-tech market euphoria in 2000, staying on to run things as the industry self-destructed. In April, with telecom finally showing signs of recovery, the three entrepreneurs bought IT International Telecom Group back from General Dynamics Corp at a discount. Price tags weren’t revealed, but in 2000 anything telecom-related fetched a high premium. The buyback comes when investors are still telecom-phobic. They sold high and bought low. So far, the wager is paying off. In the six weeks since they took control, they nabbed two contracts worth a total of $3.8 million – one in Nova Scotia, the other in the Bahamas. “General Dynamics is focusing more on its military side and we saw a bright future for the business, so we decided to buy back our freedom,” said Lèvesque. ITG’s president. The walls of ITG’s boardroom are covered with maps crisscrossed with coloured links showing marine fibre-optic lines.Much of that mass of spaghetti was created during telecom’s heyday when there was a mad rush to connect the world to handle growing Internet traffic. ITG was launched using a $250,000 bank line of credit in 1996. The company, which says it has