National Post (National Edition)
Lacavera goes public with latest venture
One of the country’s better-known entrepreneurs is set to take his latest venture public.
Anthony Lacavera, founder of the private equity firm Globalive Capital, is one of the principals behind Globalive Technology Partners (GTP) Inc., a private company formed last December.
That company has three founding partners: Globalive Capital, the founders of Mundo Inc. and VRG Capital. GTP has completed two rounds of financing and has raised about $15 million of capital.
When formed, the goal of GTP was to develop a company “focused on disrupting traditional industries by solving real-world problems with blockchain technology.” It would achieve that goal by investing in companies and forming partnerships. GTP calls the companies in which it invests collaborators.
“GTP is not an investment company. It is an operating company, a software development company,” Lacavera said Wednesday, noting that it will be his “entire” focus.
“Our business model is to form partnerships with high-growth companies, to partner with firms, to create new software that will use AI (artificial intelligence) and blockchain. And we believe we have the fastest-tomarket model,” he added, noting that once software has been developed, GTP will then “license that software to non-competitive businesses.”
GTP’s first commercial partnership was with VIDL News, a news technology platform that, according to a release at the time, “will utilize artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies to report accurate global news events and incidents in an automated and real-time manner.”
GTP has another partnership with Nuuvera Inc. (NUU.V), a Brampton, Ont.based global cannabis company. Six weeks back, Aphria launched a $826 million (through a combination of cash and stock) offer for Nuuvera, a company that has relationships in Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Malta, Israel, Lesotho and Uruguay. That takeover is subject to shareholder approval at a meeting on March 20.
Two months later, a capital pool company, Corporate Catalyst Acquisition Inc., is set to acquire GTP for $140 million by issuing 140 million share at a deemed price of $1. Corporate Catalyst was takenpublicinlate2012and raised about $400,000 from the sale of 20-cent shares. It now has 4.82 million shares outstanding. The planned acquisition of GTP will constitute the capital pool company’s qualifying transaction.
As the acquisition works its way through the regula- tory process (shareholder approval is not required), GTP will raise $30 million viaanequityraisebeingorganized by Canaccord Genuity (Clarus Securities was also in the syndicate). The dealer plans to sell 30 million subscription receipts at $1perreceipt.Lacaverasaid plans for a road show to explain the transaction were called off because of strong Day 1 investor demand.
When the dust settles, GTP will be the resultant public company with a value of $140 million. Prior to the transaction with Corporate Catalyst, GTP was valued at about $110 million. That value includes some assets that have been vended in by both Globalive Capital and VRG Capital. Lacavera said the list of vended-in assets will be announced in the near term.
Globalive Capital was formed about 15 years back. It has made 12 investments; five have been sold; three didn’t turn out too well; and four are still in the portfolio. Of the five exits, three were in telecommunications and two were in software.
The firm’s best-known investment was with Wind Mobile. In September 2014, it, along with partners (including West Face Capital) bought out majority shareholder, VimpelCom Ltd., the foreign telecom conglomerate. In late 2015 Shaw Communications bought Wind Mobile for $1.6 billion.