Blair Jordan

Other than a handful of Pension Plans domiciled in Quebec, the rest of the Canadian Pension Plan ecosystem has for the most part missed out on literally billions of $ of value creation generated by Canada’s innovative life sciences companies over the past five years. It doesn’t have to be so. Engaging Canada’s pension plans in Canada’s innovative life sciences ecosystem is not about charity or as some have suggested about “risking returns for pensioners”. It is about exactly the opposite. It is about providing alpha, enhancing returns, supporting high value domestic job creation, providing highly leveragable insights that can be used to enhance public market strategies, fulfilling ESG and impact objectives, and finally ensuring Canadians and not foreign investors derive a greater share of the value created from Canadian innovations and the hard work of Canadian entrepreneurs. I don’t know much, but that sounds like a highly virtuous circle, and as a Canadian who cares deeply about creating a vibrant economy for Canadians and seeing Canadian Pension Pensions prosper for pensioners, I, and am sure many of my peers, would be more than happy to help these Canadian Pension Plans learn how they could join that circle.

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Why do Spearhead Corp Dev's buy-side clients lose deals at the EOI/IOI stage in the past year (a challenging one re: M&A for most buyers)? ⛔ $1.5b of EV across these lost EOI/IOIs, to give you a sense of order of magnitude. Worth digging into, since it's a heavy lift to get to an EOI/IOI, and only about a third of LOIs get signed. Knowing where one can likely fail helps. Note: below is the **primary** reason (as recorded by our deal team, led by Cameron Vernest). 1. Price. No surprise. About 58% of the time (by $ of EV presented in the EOI/IOI). That outcome lives at these edges or somewhere in between: >> Our clients' offer is not competitive (and we know there are other buyers) >> Our clients' offer does not match the sellers' expectations (when there are no other buyers that we know of). 2. Sellers change their mind (happens 16% of the time) and won't transact now, but leaves the door open to it in the future. An opportunity to continue building a relationship for when the time is in fact right. 3. Seller no longer see eye to eye with our client after the offer is in their hands (14% of the time). With a large sum now a little bit more real, views and approaches can change dramatically. 5th reason (5%) is tied to this, but in this case, we know specifically that the sellers changed their mind on that topic post-EOI/IOI. 4. Lost to competiton (7%) is when our clients lose in a beauty contest, but we know it's not because of price. Our clients might have been too slow because they were working on another deal, for example.

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With countries like Denmark and Canada leading investment in alternative proteins, it's important for the US to stay competitive on a global scale. Cultivated meat, in particular, holds immense promise but also faces challenges like state-level bans. Strategic national plans and industrial policies, along with public-private partnerships, are key to accelerating innovation and driving growth in this field. #AlternativeProteins #Investment #Innovation

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Coporate venture capital continues to back private market fund managers. Congratulations to Toronto-based energy and mobility tech fund manager EnerTech Capital and Wally Hunter on receiving a $10 million commitment from Indiana-based Allison Transmission for their mobility fund! I first came across Allison Transmission when The Carlyle Group and Onex acquired the firm in 2007. Now is it back to being listed and have a corporate venture capital business known as Allison Ventures. Allison Transmission is a designer and manufacturer of propulsion solutions for commercial and defense vehicles and a large global manufacturer of medium- and heavy-duty fully automatic transmissions. Founded in 1996, EnerTech Capital are one of the longest standing and experienced energy tech venture capital investors with a focus on #Mobility, Industry 4.0, and Connected Customer. Its current platform has a significant focus on emerging opportunities in the mobility space across #Electrification, #Autonomy, Smart Mobility, and #Connectivity. I have have the pleasure of investing and working with EnerTech Capital over the past decade . Congratulations to all!  #corporateventurecapital #cvc #fundraising #toronto #canada #alternativeinvestments #fundmanagers #venturecapital #energytech #privatemarkets #automotive #mobility #limitedpartners #corporates #tenure

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