One year later - Volatus doing better than TMX
Here are three things we thought You Should Know today:
1. One year later: A year ago we held our inaugural Canada Growth Conference in the south of France to mark the expansion of our platform in Europe. More than three dozen of our European family office CEOs and founders attended the three days of meetings with ten of our top growth stories.
At the end of the weekend, the family offices picked Volatus Aerospace as the Best Company presentation - here’s Volatus CEO Glen Lynch (L) and CFO Abhi Singhavi (Centre) with Peterson Capital President Greg Stumph (Right) at the presentation ceremony on location at Saint-Paul-de-Vence.
2. How’s Volatus done since then? Very well, thank you. Revenues and EBITDA up, new business lines developed, and new pipeline surveillance contract in the US opens the door to much more to come. No wonder why a current Volatus two-year, 12% convertible debenture offering is being snapped up by fund managers who were at our conference in France. If you’d like more details, let me know.
3. Federal gov’t MIA: - There’s a reason why many people think TransMountain may be the last pipeline ever built in this country.
It looks like TMX’s completion could now be pushed back as far as December of 2024, instead of the expected opening early next year. Why is that? Engineering difficulties related to drilling a tunnel in BC have prompted TMX to ask for a slight alteration on a 1.3 kilometre stretch of the pipeline near Kamloops. Opposition to the change comes from the First Nation whose traditional territory the pipeline crosses and who had agreed to the originally proposed route.
TransMountain has no objection to consultation with the First Nation involved on the proposed change. However, the Explorers and Producers Association of Canada, which represents 139 non-oil sands oil and gas companies, has pointed out that the energy companies should be receiving support from the federal gov’t when it comes to staving off challenges from every unforeseen roadblock or voice of opposition.
Association president Tristand Goodman was quoted in today’s Globe and Mail on this issue, with a message that the federal government needs to take a leadership role in building large infrastructure projects or capital will be scared away from Canada forever:
“Of course Indigenous communities and others that could be impacted definitively have to have a role. But instead of dealing with these issues from a leadership perspective at the federal level, it’s being downloaded onto individual project proponents who are basically just businesses. That’s not how this should work. That’s not how it works in other countries….I think at some point this country’s going to have a reckoning with. Or, it’s going to spill over into all other aspects of development from coast to coast. It {Canada’s regulatory system} has just become untenable.”
He’s right. What do you think?
Thank you for your continued interest and support.
Rick Peterson (He/him)
Chair