B.C.’s fastest-growing companies will see sales soar from 2018 to 2022

Acquisitions, commodity prices and the peculiarities of the pandemic all contributed to the company’s earnings expansion

By Glenn Korstrom | September 27, 2023, 10:30am

Alakh Prasad is the CEO of Quadrogen, which sells a system that allows customers to convert biogas produced from food waste into renewable natural gas.Chuncho

BIV‘s 2023 Fastest Growing Companies list features 100 B.C. companies that have increased revenue and achieved exceptional success over the past five years.

Many of the companies on the list tend to operate under the radar, but have grown into profitable and successful ventures.

Take Quadrogen Power Systems Inc., for example. This privately held company is ranked #6. BIVThe list has an expected revenue growth of 753.4% ​​between fiscal years 2018 and 2022, with revenue exceeding $23.4 million last year.

CEO Alak Prasad said: BIV He aims to reach $30 million in sales in 2023.

Quadrogen sells systems that allow customers to convert biogas produced from food waste into renewable natural gas, which companies can use to reduce their carbon footprint or to resellers. Prasad said they could sell it.

Quadrogen was founded in 2007, but only started selling systems in 2017. This means that 2018 revenues are just starting to increase.

Since then, Quadrogen’s customers have included Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT).

He said he has installed more than 100 systems, ranging in price from $200,000 to $8 million.

Prasad’s business employs 250 people at manufacturing plants in India, the United States and Canada, and hopes to add to its 37-person workforce in Burnaby.

“We are one of the unique Canadian companies making money in the clean energy space,” Prasad said.

Profitability is important. Growing revenue is great, but generating revenue frequently is the key to attracting investors.

The stock prices of some listed companies are BIVThe list makes that clear.

Reese Wheeler CEO Jim Gilliland said investors are concerned about business metrics other than cash flow, earnings per share and revenue. BIV.

“In general, what matters more than how much a company’s sales grow is how much of that sales is available for distribution to shareholders or reinvestment,” he said.

A company’s stock price can fluctuate due to unwarranted enthusiasm or sudden whims of investors, he added.

“There are trends in the market,” Gilliland said, noting that investors flocked to cannabis companies from mid-2017 to mid-2019.

Internet stocks rose significantly during the dot-com bubble in the late 1990s, and artificial intelligence companies have also seen strong gains this year.

“We have given up trying to interpret or add a rational perspective to stock market trends,” said Carl Hansen, CEO of Abuchela Biologics (Nasdaq: ABCL). The company went public on December 11, 2020 at $20 per share. However, within minutes of entering the trade, we saw its price triple.

A few hours later, AbCellera’s stock was trading at more than $70 per share. The company has since fallen more than 90%, trading between $5 and $6 per share.

Investors in late 2020 were probably blinded by AbCellera. This is because the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic was in full swing, and AbCellera partnered with American pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Company (NYSE: LLY) to treat the then-approved novel coronavirus. This is because the company was developing a drug to treat the viral infection (COVID-19). The United States and Canada called it bamlanivimab.

Abthera will then co-develop a second COVID-19 treatment called bebuterovimab, which could be approved to more effectively treat new variants of COVID-19. .

About 2.5 million people have been treated, Hansen said. BIVand that drug saved countless lives.

Investors’ recent displeasure with AbCellera may be because people have stopped investing in companies that make COVID-19 treatments.

Thanks to its COVID-19 drug, AbCellera’s revenue was $631,848,984 in Canadian dollars, an increase of 5,420 percent from $11,442,327 in 2018. BIV‘s 2023 Fastest Growing Companies List.

Image: AbCellera CEO Carl Hansen says revenue has soared thanks to his company’s anti-COVID-19 drug | Chunzhou

AbCellera’s revenue tends to come from research advances or royalty payments.

COVID-19 treatments were developed in what Hansen called “world record speed,” as regulators drastically shortened the timeline from drug discovery to approval due to sudden critical need. This is because they wanted to accelerate the process.

As a result, AbCellera suddenly received not only upfront research income but also more lucrative royalty income.

“The payments we get for our research, the research fees and the upfront cash, are tiny compared to the value of the royalties,” he says.

AbCellera could develop new therapies to treat new variants of COVID-19, but regulatory approvals are now happening at lightning speed.

As a result, by the time regulators approve a new drug, the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 will likely have mutated into a new strain, so This means that the company is not focusing on developing new coronavirus treatment drugs. The newly approved AbCellera drug is less effective.

Hansen said it would be “charitable” to call Absela’s 2023 sales decline a “slowdown.” This is because sales have decreased by an astonishing 90% on an annualized basis.

AbCellera has engaged in more than 70 different drug development partnerships, most of which are related to cancer, autoimmunity, and metabolic disorders. However, it may take well over a decade for treatments for these diseases to be approved.

As a result, even though AbCellera now has an all-time high of 640 employees, the potential revenue from the work being done now is many years away.

Acquisitions and commodity prices could lead to sharp revenue growth

In some companies, BIV‘s 2023 list of fastest-growing companies because it merged with other ventures and benefited from rising prices for commodities and metals.

One lesser-known company whose revenue has increased, at least in part, through acquisitions is Victoria-based Certn Holdings Inc., which took the top spot on this year’s list.

The privately held venture, which conducts background checks on employers and potential landlords, saw revenue increase 18,289.2 percent to $33.5 million between 2018 and 2022.

Certn acquired UK-based Credence and Australia-based InterCheck in separate transactions in 2022.

said Shannon Davidson, Corporate Vice President and General Counsel at Certn. BIV Certn also received several funding rounds, including a US$80 million Series B funding.

In total, Certn raised approximately US$114 million.

“[That capital] They gave us the support we needed to hire more people, expand into areas we hadn’t previously explored, and expand our offerings,” Davidson said.

The company hired about 20 people in 2018, but that number increased to 430 last year, she said. The company has since reduced the number of employees to about 380.

Certn’s revenue growth also comes from its use of software and technology tools that allow it to complete more background checks more efficiently.

A shift is underway to further increase the use of artificial intelligence.

“We are currently using AI in-house and will be rolling out some advancements in 2024,” Davidson added.

Premium Brands Holdings Corp. (TSX: PBH) is a British Columbia company perhaps best known for growing through acquisitions, with revenues growing from $3,025.8 million in 2018 to $99.3 million in 2022. % increase to reach $6,029.8 million.

The company has made dozens of acquisitions over the past few decades, many of them in the past five years. The company’s largest acquisition between 2018 and 2022 was in 2020, when it partnered with the Mi’kmaq First Nation Federation to acquire Clearwater Seafoods for approximately $1 billion, including debt.

The Jim Pattison Group is another company known for its continued growth through acquisitions.it could find its way BIVDespite starting 2018 as B.C.’s largest privately held company, it ranks 82nd on the 2023 Fastest Growing Companies list.

The company’s size has increased by 48.5% from $10.1 billion in 2018 to $15 billion in 2022.

A number of companies acquired during this period include Lift Interactive, The Kelowna Auto Mall, Nonna Pia, Culinary Collective, Roth’s Fresh Markets, and Merritt Broadcasting Ltd.

Other companies that made BIV‘s 2023 list includes companies that are growing rapidly despite being large ventures as of 2018.
• Telus Corp. (TSX:T) ranked 97th, with revenue increasing 28.1 percent to more than $18.41 billion in 2022 from about $14.37 billion in 2018.
• Teck Resources Ltd. (TSX: TECK.B) is No. 92, with revenue increasing 37.8% to nearly $17.32 billion in 2022 from about $12.56 billion in 2018.and
• No. 94 Finning International Inc. (TSX: FTT) saw revenue increase 32.6% in 2022 to approximately $9.28 billion from approximately $7 billion in 2018.

Many venture companies have entered the market. BIV‘s 2023 list of Fastest Growing Companies was primarily because it was involved in mining and selling commodities and metals whose prices have increased.

Platinum is one example.

The average closing price for this metal in 2018 was $882.18. By 2022, the value has since increased to US$958.06, contributing to Eastern Platinum Ltd. (TSX:ELR) ranking third on the list.

Gold was another example.

The average daily closing price for gold in 2018 was approximately USD 1,269. In 2022, that average price rose to around 1,750 USD.

companies BIVBoosted by rising gold prices, the list includes SSR Mining Inc. (TSX: SSRM), which ranked 31st with a revenue growth rate of 174.1 percent between 2018 and 2022, and Sandstorm Gold Ltd. ( TSX: SSL), the company ranked No. 52 with a revenue growth rate of 104.2 percent for the same year, and No. 63 Eldorado Gold Corporation (TSX: ELD) had a revenue growth rate of 90.7 percent for the same year.

gkorstrom@biv.com

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