Dateline: 05/26/99
Deloitte & Touche, the accounting firm, has been searching for the fifty fastest growing technology companies in Canada. Nominations close on Friday, so if you want to nominate a company (even your own), you better get cracking!
Companies nominated can be public or private, but they must have been in business for at least five years, have 1994 revenues of at least $75,000 and 1998 revenues of at least $1 million, be incorporated and headquartered in Canada, and be a technology company as defined in their eligibility criteria. They cannot be just consulting or service companies.
After sifting through the nominees, Deloitte & Touche will release the names of the fifty winners in alphabetical order at the end of July and release them in ranked order at a gala award ceremony on September 14. The final list will also be published in The Financial Post Magazine (October issue) and in the National Post newspaper.
This is only the second year for this event, although a similar program has been operating in the U.S. for several years now. Deloitte & Touche notes that Canadian companies tend to be under-rated by the market, even though they compete on par with their American counterparts. In fact, ten Canadian companies made the Top 100 North American fastest growing tech firms last year.
"Canada’s technology industry is clearly world class yet it is not getting the respect it deserves," says Deloitte's Garry Foster. The company hopes their efforts will help Canadian high tech companies shed their Rodney Dangerfield image and get them the respect they deserve.
Last year the Fast Fifty was actually the Fast Fifty-Five. The winners included such well known companies as Tucows Interactive/Internet Direct, NTS Computer Systems, Cognicase, Architel and Research in Motion. The top company on the list, Crosskeys Systems, was tenth in North America with a five year growth in revenues of 24,613%. Second place Entrust Technologies was 16th for the continent and grew 14,381%. And third place IPS Automation ranked 43rd on the continent with an 8,831% revenue growth. All are publicly traded.
Can investors score big by investing in companies making this list? Below is a table showing the top ten companies from last year's list along with the price of the stock on the day after the list was revealed, the stock's high, and the current price. The company names link to their respective websites.
Please note that Tucows is a private company but owns the controlling interest in Internet Direct. The stock prices listed are for Internet Direct. Visible Decisions is also a privately held company, but publicly traded Pinetree Capital Corporation owns 39.7% of it as well as a substantial interest in SoftQuad, the makers of the HotMetal Internet Publishing software. I haven't included Pinetree's prices as they don't own a controlling interest in Visible Decisions.
| Company | Oct. 15, 1998 Price | High | Current Price |
| Crosskeys Systems | $8.20 | $16.00 | $5.50 |
| Entrust Technologies | $9.00 | $43.06 | $23.38 |
| IPS Automation | $0.55 | $2.05 | $0.70 |
| MDSI Mobile Data | $16.90 | $32.75 | $27.00 |
| Sunblush Technologies | $4.10 | $5.50 | $1.00 |
| Virtek Vision | $1.30 | $2.05 | $1.45 |
| Tucows/Internet Direct | $0.63 | $7.50 | $5.60 |
| Platform Computing | Private | n/a | n/a |
| InGenius Engineering | Private | n/a | n/a |
| Visible Decisions | Private | n/a | n/a |
We can see from the chart that all of the Top Ten on last year's list were up at some point from their prices on Oct. 15, but two are lower today than on Oct. 15. Crosskeys, however, offered a good opportunity for profit taking before it declined. Only Sunblush Technologies was likely to end up in an investor's hands as a loser. The others all show modest to healthy gains. $1000 invested in each and held to today would have grown from $7000 to $16,387.03 for a gain of 134.1%. Mind you, most of that gain came from one stock, Internet Direct which recently had a terrific run-up in price on the basis of a merger with Look Communications. The company also recently merged with Delphi Super-Net, a Quebec based ISP.
So should we watch for this year's list when it comes out? Right now it looks like the market might be gearing up for a retrenchment. If we get a large correction like we did last year, with similar timing, the list should be out at a perfect time to take advantage of it. Of course, we have to do some due diligence on the companies on the list, but it will provide some excellent leads. Watch for it!
Canada's World-Class Technology Companies Don't Get the Respect They Deserve - May 30th Press Release from Deloitte & Touche announcing the competition.
High Tech Links - my collection of High Tech Links at Investing: Canada.
Canadian Internet Stock Average - my charts of Canadian Internet stocks and how they have fared since January First.
The Daily: Have you checked out The Daily? Links to daily Canadian business and investment news and commentary.
Live Chat: Check out our live Chat Room for entertaining and informative live discussion with other investors on your topic of choice. I've designated certain times for certain discussions, but most of the time it is an open free-for-all. You can chat publicly with everyone in the room or privately one-on-one with someone. Check our Events Calendar for discussion times and topics or go straight to chat. If you find the Chat Room empty when you visit, try again later or make arrangements with a friend to meet there at a pre-determined time. (You don't have to discuss investing so if you want to have a live chat with your Aunt Matilda in Moose Jaw, that's okay too!)