Smaller steady businesses that have generated profits consistently and that want to raise money to grow or to research and develop new products and processes have every reason to believe that there are investors out there ready, willing and able to back them.
This will be good news to owners and organizations that need funding to move forward but have gone about as far as they can go with their own assets, retained earnings, bank lines and support of friends and family.
The key, according Jay Vieira, a new corporate finance and securities law partner at Blaney McMurtry, is a company’s history of, and prospects for, continuing cash flow and profitability and the resulting capacity to pay reasonable, reliable returns to debt holders and shareholders.
“In this market,” with its persistently low interest rates, “people are more interested in a regular income stream...dividends. People want a security blanket” that generates, safely, something more than the one or two per cent returned by government bonds.
Securing financial support from a wide range of individuals, partnerships and institutions, does not, by definition, mean “going public” in the classical sense, with all of the attendant costs and effort related to the creation and distribution of prospectuses.
There is a number of prospectus-exempt ways under provincial law to raise money by issuing bonds, stocks, warrants and other securities. “Most money these days is being raised by (such) private placement,” Mr. Vieira observes.
This work is done on behalf of businesses searching for new capital by a variety of professionals, including lawyers and investment bankers.
Mr. Vieira, who joined Blaneys this past summer to help the firm provide greater support to its business law clients and to grow its corporate finance and securities law business, has broad experience in both representing directly companies looking for new capital and advising investment bankers who are contemplating providing it.
He has acted for domestic and international corporations and investment dealers in a broad range of transactions, including public offerings, private placements and acquisitions.
Some of his clients include international miners and companies in the medical devices, telecommunications, media and renewable energy fields.
He also advises public issuers on general corporate and securities law matters, including stock exchange listings on the TSX, TSX Venture Exchange and CSE; continuous disclosure obligations and other regulatory compliance issues.
He is experienced in preparing prospectuses, conducting and coordinating due diligence, preparing proxy material in all aspects of securities law (including shareholder meeting materials, private placements and capital pool companies).
Born in the Azores and raised in Hamilton from the age of four, Mr. Vieira’s Portuguese is strong enough to work with unilingual Portuguese-speaking clients.
A graduate of the University of Windsor law school and a member of the TSX Local Advisory Council for Ontario, Mr. Vieira says he was drawn to corporate finance and securities work because “it involves (all parties) working toward a common goal.”
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