Private EquityPrivate Capital at Work

Birch Hill’s investment helped Bluewave make a total of 16 acquisitions over three years that more than tripled the size of the company without the need for any additional equity investment. Between 2006 and 2009, Bluewave grew from 11 to 48 branches and doubled its employees to more than 400, while revenue increased from $99M to $670M and profit from $4M to $38M.

With Westcap’s investment, the company continued on product development and future growth and increased its employee count.

By 2015, Finucan decided it was time to recapitalize the company he bootstrapped and grew organically from the ground up. He now needed a partner to help him, and the company, take on more risk.

Fulcrum didn’t just come with the funds, Castelli says, but the experience and strategic insight to help Weatherhaven cope with volatility in the business a few years ago, driven largely by the drop in commodity prices, including oil and gas and some metals.

It was an interest and expertise in mechanical services that led Peter Harteveld to co-found CustomAir in his Metro Vancouver area basement nearly 30 years ago. Harteveld started the company in 1991 with another mechanical services technician, Peter Whiten, with a goal to provide not just refrigeration but also heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) and

Photo Credit: Bell Media (Former Cieslok-owned Media Billboards, Yonge-Dundas Square, Toronto, Canada) A PE Partnership that took digital advertising to the next level Ever wonder who the pioneer was behind the major digital advertising you see on the street in major Canadian cities? Meet Jörg Cieslok. Six months after taking his first advertising sales job, Jörg

Photo from bestar.ca. It was nearly two years after selling his door manufacturing business to Masonite International Corp. that entrepreneur Mario Aubé was approached to run a different kind of building products company, furniture maker Bestar Inc. Lac-Mégantic, Que.-based Bestar, which designs and makes ready-to-assemble (RTA) home and office furniture, was looking for a new

I joined the CVCA a year ago with limited knowledge of private capital. I had been exposed to venture investing, to some degree, as the multinational I spent the last decade working for made some of investments in early-stage, Canadian businesses. My learning curve was steep, but extremely energizing. My expectation on assuming the role