Improving the liquidity options for mid-life high technology companies in Canada

In a paper published by ITAC in April of 2004 entitled Growing World Class Canadian High Technology Companies, it was pointed out that one of the impediments to growing such companies was a dysfunctional Canadian investment industry that had reasonably large pools of venture capital and mezzanine capital but a limited supply of what Thomson Macdonald describes as buyout capital. The result is that many of our high technology companies get purchased by foreign strategic buyers (i.e. companies that are in the same line of business) and become integrated into their worldwide operations. This paper reports on the results of interactions that Doyletech Corporation has had with the various constituents who might be in a position to influence the flow of buyout capital to high technology companies. These constituents include the managers of pools of buyout capital in Canada, the federal government, and the high technology industry.