Things sure aren't what they used to be at iTech
John Spears, BUSINESS REPORTER
TORONTO STAR: MONDAY APRIL 24, 2000 (Business Section)
What do you say about a company that has changed its name, its business and its management? And on top of that, boasts that it is a company with U.S. assets packaged in a Canadian box?
Meet iTech Capital Corp., formerly Jordex Resources Inc. The new incarnations holds its annual meeting Wednesday.
iTech is one of a flock of companies deserting the resource sector mining in this case for the lure of technology.
Investors are still puzzling over iTech's prospects: The stock has wobbled from $1.51 Feb. 10, to $3.99 on
March 6 and last traded at $1.17.
But if president William W. Staudt has been worried about the tech-stock bubble bursting, he doesn't show it.
iTech is concentrating on two sectors, he stresses: Companies serving the business-to-businesss market on the Internet; and telecommunications.
Both are in their early years of growth, he says. He likens them to the automotive sector in the early 19th century, with dozens of auto makers trying to get into the business.
Many didn't make it, but over-all it was an industry on the verge of explosive growth.
There's no shortage of candidates, he says. The trick for iTech, which had $16.9 million cash on Dec. 31, 1999, is finding the good ones.
``In the last six months we've looked at 200 opportunities,'' Staudt said in a recent interview on a trip to Toronto. ``We've invested in seven.''
All the companies iTech has invested in have a product ready for market, and are generating revenue. They're generally a year or two away from an initial public offering.
They're also all in the United States Staudt works out of White Plains, N.Y. but iTech remains a Canadian company in order to qualify as Canadian content for investment in registered retirement savings plans.
Investments to date include Medsite.com Inc., which sells products and services to physicians over the Internet;
Applied Data Systems Inc., which makes components for wireless phones; and Elastic Networks Inc., which
offers products that help cram more signals on to copper wires.
Staudt says he has gained a nose for a good deal over the last 20 years, when he has bought, operated and sold a
string of companies.
``I am not just a financial artist,'' he says. ``I know what it takes to run a business. I've had the human resource problems. I've had the product problems.''
Because he owned and ran mostly smaller firms, he says, he also gained insight into how to be successful as a small fish in a big pond. |
