VMedia aims to ‘fast track’ plans with public play: co-founder

George Burger, co-founder of Ontario-based telecom VMedia Inc., says he knows his company can fulfill its objectives, such as expanding into more multi-dwelling units and accelerating its TV product offerings, on its own, but doing that would be faster as a publicly-traded entity. “We just decided, ‘hey, look, it’s about time for us to hopefully have some additional resources that will allow us to grow more quickly and more aggressively,” he said over the phone on Thursday. Two days earlier, a press release announced that VMedia had come to a preliminary agreement to buy Phoenix Canada Oil Company Ltd., the Toronto-based publicly-traded oil and gas investment company, in a reverse takeover maneuver. The move would allow VMedia to avoid a costly and risky public offering by effectively buying itself onto the TSX Venture exchange -- a listing board for upstarts and lower-valued companies (Phoenix has a market value of $7.3 million and $9.3 million in assets as of June 30) -- and assuming the place of the target company. The terms of the agreement are non-binding, meaning the companies will need to come to more concrete terms before it moves forward. The agreement in its current form also contains conditions, including meeting corporate, board and shareholder approvals, as well as regulatory and court blessings, the release said. The combined entity “will continue to carry on the business of VMedia,” the release added. Burger said he plans to focus on accelerating the company’s growth into MDUs, where “a lot of potential customers are,” which will also allow VMedia to expand its facilities-based business, he said. He added building relationships and becoming a “trusted supplier of services” to these residences will be important. But he also noted that being quick to market and having leadership -- the “first mover advantage” -- on TV technology is important, too. He said his company was a leader in bringing seamless transitions between live TV and streaming apps like Netflix Inc. with the introduction of its VBox set-top box product, as well as bringing to market skinny basic channels before the CRTC mandated those offerings. “That’s really what we want to be capitalizing on going forward,” he said. Burger says the two companies began talking six to eight months ago when Phoenix, which was looking for a strategic change, approached VMedia with the proposal. “VMedia has been looking for opportunities to raise capital and effect a strategic change for ourselves as well,” Burger said, adding his company has been too focused on growing its business to put too many resources into seeking these opportunities. “The focus has been raising money, and we have pursued that on and off, almost from the time that we started, but it’s been sporadic and largely delayed by pursuing our business opportunities,” he said. “So when the opportunity came up, it was very timely.” The company offers home phone, internet and TV service, and expanded to Quebec, British Columbia, Manitoba and Alberta in 2016. It initially began life through word-of-mouth advertising, after which it started plowing funds into traditional marketing, Burger said. And while being publicly-traded has its downsides, including the burden of disclosure requirements and more scrutiny when things go poorly, Burger said the good is magnified equally. — With reporting by Ahmad Hathout at ahathout@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

VMedia aims to ‘fast track’ plans with public play: co-founder

News | October 25, 2018

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VMedia aims to ‘fast track’ plans with public play: co-founder

News | October 25, 2018

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