You may be wondering what my next project is. I have been retained by Lang AG to assist it in getting to the next level in its business development. We are financing this project by taking Lang public on the Toronto Venture Exchange by way of a reverse take over.
Lang AG is in the property improvement and solar integration business in Germany. Their property improvement business services some of Germany's largest property owners, providing a turn key solution to their renovation needs. When Germany was unified, the government privatized large portfolios of government housing. The private equity investors are obliged to bring the properties up to current “green” standards. Government subsidies are in place to assist with this. Many of the property owners outsource this to companies like Lang.
In addition to the property improvement side of the business, Lang is also developing ground and roof mounted (for their property owning clients) PV solar power installations. We have partnered with a Canadian fund to provide the equity for these projects.
At this stage, we are looking for public distribution of a pre-RTO round in order to comply with the distribution requirements of the Toronto Venture Exchange. The minimum investment is CDN $5,100. The maximum is CDN $25,500. We will be looking for a more substantial round of financing in the fall once we are publically trading.
Our plan is to fund Lang's growth of both the property improvement division throughout Europe as well as the solar division on a global basis. The solar division's initial focus will be roof and ground mounted projects in Germany, but we also intend to expand into other markets in Europe and North America, particularly with our team based in Ontario given the new initiative announced last week by the provincial government.
Green business is one of the few industries that will experience growth during this economic downturn. I suggest that you join me in going green. Otherwise, you might be green with envy!
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
I'm Back!!
Its been over 6 months since the last entry on my blog. The reason for the hiatus was a combination of being very busy in my role as interim President & CEO of SonnenEnergy Corp. and the risk of writing about the goings on at the company given the disclosure rules of the Toronto Venture Exchange. Frankly, I wasn't too sure about what I could and couldn't write about. So, I chose not to write at all.
I left SonnenEnergy a little over a month ago. I have been asked by many people why I left. The bottom line was that the board of directors and I were in a dispute with Hans Hager, the founder and major shareholder of the company. It got to the point that Herr Hager commenced litigation against the company and me personally. He was able to get injunctive relief that made it virtually impossible to deal with the many problems of the company without a court order or his consent.
Despite many attempts to settle the litigation or obtain Herr Hager's consent to some of the changes that the board and I had brought forward, we simply couldn't move the company forward. In addition, we were needlessly spending a huge sum of money on litigation. We came to the conclusion that it was not in the best interest of the company to spend money that we didn't have to fight the litigation. As a result, we resigned and turned the company over the Herr Hager and his new board.
The ball is now in the new board's and Herr Hager's court to act in the best interest of the company. I remind them that they must take into account the interest of the company as a whole when making decisions about the future of the company. I wish them well, particularly since I am still a significant shareholder of the company.
I left SonnenEnergy a little over a month ago. I have been asked by many people why I left. The bottom line was that the board of directors and I were in a dispute with Hans Hager, the founder and major shareholder of the company. It got to the point that Herr Hager commenced litigation against the company and me personally. He was able to get injunctive relief that made it virtually impossible to deal with the many problems of the company without a court order or his consent.
Despite many attempts to settle the litigation or obtain Herr Hager's consent to some of the changes that the board and I had brought forward, we simply couldn't move the company forward. In addition, we were needlessly spending a huge sum of money on litigation. We came to the conclusion that it was not in the best interest of the company to spend money that we didn't have to fight the litigation. As a result, we resigned and turned the company over the Herr Hager and his new board.
The ball is now in the new board's and Herr Hager's court to act in the best interest of the company. I remind them that they must take into account the interest of the company as a whole when making decisions about the future of the company. I wish them well, particularly since I am still a significant shareholder of the company.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
President & CEO of SonnenEnergy Corp.
The last week and a half have been crazy for me. Since November, 2007, I have been chairman of the board of directors of SonnenEnergy Corp. (www.sonnenenergy.com), a public company that trades on the Toronto Venture Exchange (TSXV:PWR). The company is a solar energy integrator and independent power producer with most of its operations in Germany.
Last Monday, the day before our annual general meeting of the shareholders, the board of directors decided that we needed a change in the leadership of the company. On short notice, I agreed to step in as President & CEO until we can conduct a search and identify an appropriate candidate for the job. The next day I addressed the shareholders and two days later I did the earnings conference call for shareholders and analysts.
You can hear the webcast of my conference call at http://www.newswire.ca/en/webcast/viewEvent.cgi?eventID=2394480.
In between these meetings and over the past weekend I have been busy getting my head around the issues, communicating with key stakeholders and planning a trip to Germany to review our operations.
As I see it, my goals are as follows:
1. Conducting a thorough and comprehensive search to find a new CEO to lead this company, ensure that we execute on our business plan and create value for our shareholders;
2. Working diligently to ensure that we deliver on the projections laid out by management and that revenue from future projects comes in as projected; and
3. Making it a priority to secure the funding we require in order to fund our future growth and meet our installation and power production targets in this year and the years to come.
With the whirlwind that I have jumped on to, I may not be blogging on as regular a basis. Stay tuned.
Last Monday, the day before our annual general meeting of the shareholders, the board of directors decided that we needed a change in the leadership of the company. On short notice, I agreed to step in as President & CEO until we can conduct a search and identify an appropriate candidate for the job. The next day I addressed the shareholders and two days later I did the earnings conference call for shareholders and analysts.
You can hear the webcast of my conference call at http://www.newswire.ca/en/webcast/viewEvent.cgi?eventID=2394480.
In between these meetings and over the past weekend I have been busy getting my head around the issues, communicating with key stakeholders and planning a trip to Germany to review our operations.
As I see it, my goals are as follows:
1. Conducting a thorough and comprehensive search to find a new CEO to lead this company, ensure that we execute on our business plan and create value for our shareholders;
2. Working diligently to ensure that we deliver on the projections laid out by management and that revenue from future projects comes in as projected; and
3. Making it a priority to secure the funding we require in order to fund our future growth and meet our installation and power production targets in this year and the years to come.
With the whirlwind that I have jumped on to, I may not be blogging on as regular a basis. Stay tuned.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
All Your Eggs in One Basket
Much has been heard and written about businesses that have too much of their revenue tied to one customer. If the customer goes elsewhere, you lose your business.
In fact, a friend of mine who shall remain nameless for confidentiality purposes was just about to submit a letter of intent to buy a business that had 90% of its revenue coming from one customer. During his due diligence, my friend heard a rumour that the customer representing 90% of the business had recently decided move to single sourcing for this product and the target company apparently was not going to be the single source. Yikes.
Another example of having all one's egg is one basket involved my client Auctionwire Inc. This is a supply side situation. Auctionwire is the leading auction agency for top brand companies and non-profit organizations. Historically, they ran all of their high end auctions exclusively on the ebay platform. Ebay was effectively their sole supplier of the back end of their auctions. A number of months ago, Auctionwire had a dispute with one of their customers when the customer failed to deliver the auction item and Auctionwire refused to forward the purchase price opting to protect the buyer. A complaint was lodged with ebay, who rather that ajudicating whether the complaint was valid, began to arbitrarily suspending some of Auctionwire's other auctions even though they had nothing to do with the dispute.
Auctionwire began to realize that it had all of its eggs in ebay's basket and that their entire business was at risk. Ebay could arbitrarily and unilaterally put Auctionwire out of business because of the onerous terms of their standard form user agreement. Because of the near monopolistic position that ebay has in the market, Auctionwire has no ability to negotiate the terms of the user agreement. They have to take it or leave it.
Auctionwire decided to leave it. They took immediate action to diversify their suppliers of the online auction back end. Auctionwire successful found another platform and was able to secure the exclusive licence to use this online auction software. Now Auctionwire controls their own destiny because they have complete control over their online auction back end systems and no longer are dependent on ebay.
Be very careful if you have all of your eggs in one basket, whether it is on the supplier or the customer side. Being so dependent on someone puts your business in a very vulnerable position. Whether they have greater bargaining power, end up going out of business or being bought by one of your competitors, having all of your eggs in one basket could result in the death of your business.
In fact, a friend of mine who shall remain nameless for confidentiality purposes was just about to submit a letter of intent to buy a business that had 90% of its revenue coming from one customer. During his due diligence, my friend heard a rumour that the customer representing 90% of the business had recently decided move to single sourcing for this product and the target company apparently was not going to be the single source. Yikes.
Another example of having all one's egg is one basket involved my client Auctionwire Inc. This is a supply side situation. Auctionwire is the leading auction agency for top brand companies and non-profit organizations. Historically, they ran all of their high end auctions exclusively on the ebay platform. Ebay was effectively their sole supplier of the back end of their auctions. A number of months ago, Auctionwire had a dispute with one of their customers when the customer failed to deliver the auction item and Auctionwire refused to forward the purchase price opting to protect the buyer. A complaint was lodged with ebay, who rather that ajudicating whether the complaint was valid, began to arbitrarily suspending some of Auctionwire's other auctions even though they had nothing to do with the dispute.
Auctionwire began to realize that it had all of its eggs in ebay's basket and that their entire business was at risk. Ebay could arbitrarily and unilaterally put Auctionwire out of business because of the onerous terms of their standard form user agreement. Because of the near monopolistic position that ebay has in the market, Auctionwire has no ability to negotiate the terms of the user agreement. They have to take it or leave it.
Auctionwire decided to leave it. They took immediate action to diversify their suppliers of the online auction back end. Auctionwire successful found another platform and was able to secure the exclusive licence to use this online auction software. Now Auctionwire controls their own destiny because they have complete control over their online auction back end systems and no longer are dependent on ebay.
Be very careful if you have all of your eggs in one basket, whether it is on the supplier or the customer side. Being so dependent on someone puts your business in a very vulnerable position. Whether they have greater bargaining power, end up going out of business or being bought by one of your competitors, having all of your eggs in one basket could result in the death of your business.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Indian Drilling Company
I just returned from a week in Calgary with my new client Mohit Gupta of Geo Drilling Ltd., a coal bed methane (CBM) start up in India.
I met Mohit when I was in Delhi in 2004 as part of the speaking tour that I did in connection with the launch of my book, Lessons from the Edge. Mohit was the president of the Entrepreneurs' Organization chapter in Delhi and was my host during my stay.
Mohit is now working with some partners with coal industry experience to build an Indian CBM drilling company. Apparently, while there are any number of traditional deep well drilling companies in India, there are virtually no competitors in this specialized space. Shallow well drilling for CBM requires unique skills.
My mandate is to find a Canadian joint venture partner for Geo Drilling. While Geo Drilling has capital, labour and local expertise and contacts, they require a Canadian JV partner with the specialized skills to drill for CBM. We had a very successful trip. We identified a couple potential partners and we are now getting to know them better in order to identify the ideal partner. We will then negotiate the terms of the JV.
Its all gloom and doom here in Ontario these days. Real estate prices are drifting in the wrong direction and the lay offs in the manufacturing sector are piling up. Calgary on the other hand is in full fledged boom town mode. It was reinvigorating to be in an environment where there is a sense of confidence about the economy. I look forward to spending more time in Calgary and India as we put together this exciting Indo Canadian joint venture.
I met Mohit when I was in Delhi in 2004 as part of the speaking tour that I did in connection with the launch of my book, Lessons from the Edge. Mohit was the president of the Entrepreneurs' Organization chapter in Delhi and was my host during my stay.
Mohit is now working with some partners with coal industry experience to build an Indian CBM drilling company. Apparently, while there are any number of traditional deep well drilling companies in India, there are virtually no competitors in this specialized space. Shallow well drilling for CBM requires unique skills.
My mandate is to find a Canadian joint venture partner for Geo Drilling. While Geo Drilling has capital, labour and local expertise and contacts, they require a Canadian JV partner with the specialized skills to drill for CBM. We had a very successful trip. We identified a couple potential partners and we are now getting to know them better in order to identify the ideal partner. We will then negotiate the terms of the JV.
Its all gloom and doom here in Ontario these days. Real estate prices are drifting in the wrong direction and the lay offs in the manufacturing sector are piling up. Calgary on the other hand is in full fledged boom town mode. It was reinvigorating to be in an environment where there is a sense of confidence about the economy. I look forward to spending more time in Calgary and India as we put together this exciting Indo Canadian joint venture.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
A Personal Branded Website
I have decided to create a personal website. It has been an interesting process. As I go through the design stages, it begs a number of questions:
- Why do I want one? Is a personal brand the right way to go or should I be creating a corporate site for Cale Financial?
- What is the call to action? What am I looking for? Clients for my advisory practice? Corporate director opportunities? Exposure for my writing? Speaking opportunities?
- Should it be in first person ("I do this; I do that") or third person ("Jeff Dennis does this; Jeff Dennis does that")?
- What domain name should I use (unfortunately the jeffdennis.com and jeffdennis.ca domain names are taken)?
- Then there are the design issues of colour, font, layout, etc.
- Finally, I have to learn about search engine optimization strategies so that someone will come to my site.
Why a Personal Brand?
I've decided to go with the personal website because I am building a personal brand. People know me as Jeff Dennis, serial entrepreneur and trusted advisor to the CEOs of fast growth companies. My company, Cale Financial Corporation, has been in existence for over 10 years and has no brand recognition. I have merely used it as a vehicle for my capital raising activities since it is registered with the Ontario Securities Commission as a limited market dealer and as such is entitled to do "private placement" transactions with accredited investors. I am known as having expertise in the entrepreneurial field - strategy, finance, etc. If they search for me on Google, they will likely look for Jeff Dennis, not Cale Financial. A personal website will reinforce this.
What Am I Looking For?
My first draft of the copy for the website was all over the map. It was neither here, nor there. A little bit of this and a little bit of that - advising, capital, writing, speaking. Confusion.
It was a great process to map out the site as a flow chart and then write the copy for each page of the site. As I refined my writing, I kept asking myself what I was looking for? What is the call to action? I decided that my bottom line is my bottom line - I want new advisory clients. Everything else simply provides credibility as to why someone would want to hire me.
First Person?
The jury is still out on this question. Some would argue that first person is better because its less formal and creates a more approachable tone. On the other hand, you can come across as egotistical as you blow your own horn. My instinct is to go with a third person voice. It comes across as a testimonial so it is less self serving sounding. But, I may still change my mind.
Domain Name
The jury is still out on this one as well. I was disappointed that jeffdennis.com and jeffdennis.ca were taken by a jeweller and a real estate agent, respectively. Stay tuned as I figure this one out.
Design
I am using Teresa Gamble to design my site. She designed my wife's site - www.talktherapy.ca - which has been very successful. Lori gets the vast majority of her clients from Google searches that land on her site.
SEO
SEO or search engine optimization is something that I am just learning about. Teresa has clearly done a great job with Lori's website. I am doing some research and will rely on Teresa's expertise. From what I have read, the bottom line seems to be coming up with key words and having your site linked to other sites.
As soon as my website is up and running I will update my blog with more of the process and my learning. Stay tuned.
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