More from the Ottawa Citizen.........
Another surprise from Matthews
Bert Hill and James Bagnall
The Ottawa Citizen
Terry Matthews likes to keep the world off-balance.
By being the first into the market with new products, the telecommunications magnate has repeatedly surprised competitors and reaped fat profits. His announcement of a $200-million-plus development of the 500-acre campus he has quietly assembled along March Road is no exception.
Within seven years, the number of people working on the Newbridge campus could jump from 3,500 to 8,200 if the high-technology sector continues to boom.
He plans to build up to 17 new buildings for Newbridge, its affiliates and independent companies who want to lease or buy space.
His Kanata Research Park company will spend more than $30 million to build a 200-room hotel, an 18-hole golf course, tennis courts, recreation centre and a conference centre. Work could start this year.
Most of these facilities will be open to the general public, although their prime purpose is to serve Newbridge customers and employees. For example, the public can now sample international cuisine, fresh-baked goods and speciality coffee at Neptune's Kitchen.
Co-owner Luigi Meliambro said business has been good as local residents and Newbridge, Mosaid, Digital and Mitel employees discover the location.
A beauty salon and a travel agency are open and a drycleaner, card shop, law firm, a medical doctor, a dentist, a chiropractor, stockbroker and day-care centre will follow.
The biggest change that visitors will see is a new entrance way, tentatively named Brook Drive, which will lead visitors from March Road past a reflecting pool to the hotel, conference centre and athletic club.
Shirley's Brook, a tiny stream that now ambles through the property, will be widened in places to create scenic ponds for the benefit of guests.
Parking will be put underground, buildings will be linked by all-weather walkways or joined in a concourse leading to the hotel and conference centre.
Mr. Matthews can finance all this through his 23-per-cent-plus stake in Newbridge. While the value of his shares has plummeted to $1.7 billion from $3.8 billion last October, there's obviously still plenty remaining to pay for this project. If Newbridge's earnings continue to grow over the next few years, as analysts expect, he can probably count on a strong rebound in his company's share price.
Mr. Matthews would certainly welcomed a rebound in share price, considering he is also financing a $240-million hotel and golf resort in his native Wales. But stock-price gains in the short term aren't essential: He said he has investment partners and access to debt financing.
Mr. Matthews owned 41.1 million shares as of April 30. He has since sold more than 700,000 shares for roughly $52.7 million, according to insider-trading reports filed with the Ontario Securities Commission.
Mr. Matthews has long been fascinated by land and real estate development and it shows up in the way he structures his affairs. Nearly 80 per cent of Mr. Matthews' shares are held by Kanata Research Park Corp. He owns the balance directly or through four numbered corporations.
Losing more than $2 billion on paper has not cooled his ambition or competitive instincts.
At the unveiling ceremony, Mr. Matthews displayed a framed picture from Upside, a U.S. magazine. It showed Intel founder Andy Grove conducting an orchestra of high-technology stars whose faces were pasted over the bodies of real musicians.
Mr. Matthews was in the second row of violins, directly behind Microsoft's Bill Gates. Mr. Matthews joked he might be playing second string "but my fiddle is a bit bigger than his."
And another one.....
Saturday 17 January 1998
Newbridge drives competition
Recruiters say complex will attract skilled workers
Bert Hill
The Ottawa Citizen
The Ottawa Citizen / Terry Matthews, chairman of Newbridge Networks Corp., has just made recruiting harder for his competitors.
Robert Cross, The Ottawa Citizen / Newbridge campus: Existing buildings, Future buildings
Newbridge Networks' plans for a hotel, golf course and conference centre on its Kanata office campus will drive the hot competition for skilled technology workers to new heights, experts say.
"They are really upping the ante," said Randy Baker, Ottawa recruiting manager for Cisco Systems, a Newbridge competitor and an industry leader in developing new recruiting tactics. "There is no question this going to make it more difficult to recruit people, but I welcome the challenge."
Mr. Baker and other recruiters said they think the Newbridge plans, which include space for as many as 12 other technology firms, will ultimately increase the talent pool here by attracting more companies and employees.
The Newbridge campus will provide a full range of recreational and day-care facilities as well as doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers, drycleaning, a restaurant, hair salon and card shop.
Mr. Baker said, "They understand the importance of providing technology workers with the services that simplify their lives and reduce stress. That is a sign of an organization that is a world-class competitor."
Cisco is no slouch in when it comes to recruiting here or at its San Jose headquarters in the heart of California's fiercely competitive Silicon Valley.
Its recruiting campaigns on the Internet and in unlikely venues such as movie houses and home shows has broken new ground in the recruiting race.
In Ottawa it has posted billboards near Nortel buildings in a bid to attract 20 new employees in the next three months.
Newbridge chairman Terry Matthews said the new development will give his company a competitive edge.
The ambitious Newbridge plans, which include $200 million in new office and research facilities, could force competitors to change their plans.
For example, JDS Fitel plans to move into 435,000 square feet of new office and manufacturing space in Merivale Road South this summer that will include a cafeteria and outdoor recreational facilities.
Future development phases call for a 7,000-square-foot fitness centre and day-care services, but the Nepean planning department said these plans can be accelerated before JDS adds another 320,000 square feet of space.
Northern Telecom Ltd. said it doesn't believe the Newbridge expansion will put any more pressure on it to keep its employees.
But that may be because Nortel's facilities are already some of the best in the city and it announced plans for 600,000 more square feet of office space.
Nortel's research and development world headquarters on Carling Avenue boasts the second-largest athletic facility in the region, European-style meeting places -- known as piazzas -- with cappuccino makers, bank machines, cafes and an on-site day-care centre.
Its outdoor facilities include picnic areas in the summer and cross-country ski trails and a skating pond in the winter.
But Nortel thinks great facilities are just one ingredient to making workers happy and keeping up morale.
"I don't know anyone who's joined a company only because of the gym," said Nortel spokesman Jacques Guerette. "It's part of a bigger package."
Nick Deeble, head of Cadence Design Systems, which creates telecommunication products for other companies, said that "Terry (Matthews) is putting Ottawa on the map, and that is definitely a positive for the local technology community."
His company competes for many of the same skills as Newbridge and has started advertising during Senator TV broadcasts. Mr. Deeble said the real challenge is outside the region. "The big issue is getting people to consider coming to Ottawa."
Cadence, which has grown from 15 employees in mid-1996 to more than 100 today, plans to move to new quarters early next year when employment hits 200.
It recently put out a proposal for 100,000 square feet of space and got 19 responses that it is evaluating. "The Newbridge proposal for a campus development with lots of green space are exactly the kind of property we are looking for."
Terry Scullion, a spokesman for Quantum, a recruiting company, said "The competition for staff is fierce. Newbridge clearly understands that computer engineers want more than just a place to work."
He said the Newbridge announcement will encourage more companies to enter the Ottawa market. He said that a major U.S. software company has started hiring key staff to set up a new research and development lab that will employ about 25 engineers.
Gary Phippard, president of ASH Technology Marketing, said Newbridge's plans will increase the competition for skilled people in the region. "But it is far preferable to have some unfilled jobs in their region than not to have the new jobs at all.
And another one.....
Saturday 17 January 1998
Expansion is good for Kanata
Julia Elliott
Investors love expansion news. And Kanata is banking on the Newbridge development to "solidify" investor confidence, says the city's manager of economic development.
"You get a company like that announcing that level of growth and commitment to your community, (and) those who are sitting on the sidelines are perhaps now going to make (investment) decisions," says Robin Mackay.
Newbridge Networks announced plans this week to build a 200-room hotel, athletic club, conference centre and an 18-hole golf course at its Kanata headquarters. Plans also include plenty of space for walking and hiking and 12 new buildings around the golf course for independent technology companies.
What is this likely to mean for Kanata? More retail stores and services, more houses and more jobs.
The community will continue to see a high rate of growth, becoming more of a full-service centre, and keeping more retail and service spending in the community, he says.
"A lot of the workers (in the high-tech area) are fairly well educated, they have good salaries and they spend within (Kanata's) economy, Mr. Mackay says.
"We've been told through our consultants that the more high-technology workers, the more office workers that you have, the more service workers that will be in your community."
Kanata's plans for a specialty retail shopping district in an area north of the Queensway, with Castlefrank Road forming a rough eastern perimeter, is likely to take shape more quickly because of Newbridge's activities, he says.
And more recreational facilities at the Newbridge campus means a better quality of life for Kanata residents and more incentive for others to settle there, too, he adds.
Ian Cross, an economic analyst for the regional government, predicts housing starts in Kanata will increase 15 per cent to 20 per cent in the next few years.
There's lots of room to grow, he says. Kanata has reached only about half its growth potential, with vacant land available for at least 17,000 houses.
But office space is at a premium. Kanata's office vacancy rate is a minuscule 0.4 per cent, says Kanata mayor Merle Nicholds.
"What Terry is announcing here is a major boost to the people who are looking for office space.
"The challenge right now is there's no office spec buildings being built.
"And so for those companies that want to rent space -- and they all want to be in the (Kanata) North business park, especially want to be near Newbridge -- this is a tremendous economic development boost for our whole community."
Newbridge's plans for a 200-room hotel at their Kanata headquarters don't disturb Chris Fleming, president of Nepean-based Westeinde Fleming Developments. His company is one of the developers of an eight-storey, 154-room suite hotel to be built this year in Kanata's Town Centre. The hotel project is a joint venture of Journey's End Corp. and Penex Kanata Ltd., the landowner.
"My sense is that there's room for more than one hotel in Kanata," Mr. Fleming says. "We didn't expect that it would be the only hotel in the area. You can't expect things to stand still, so (the Newbridge announcement) not really a total surprise."
Planned to be franchised as a four-star Clarion Hotel and Suites with Choice Hotels Canada, the new hotel will have meeting and banquet facilities, a health club and an indoor swimming pool.
But the president of the Kanata Chamber of Commerce doesn't think Kanata's 50,000 population can support two hotels.
Doug Foster says "a hotel might be better situated close to the Corel Centre adjacent to the Queensway to service the centre's headline entertainers and tourist traffic." |
