Ringing the bell to signal the start of trading at the stock exchange is a time honoured tradition for executives at newly-listed public companies. It announces to the market, “We’ve arrived,” and is usually a time to be shared with executives, deal guys, board members, advisors, family members, hangers on, posses, minions, and that guy who has an in at The Brass Rail.
Not for AMPD Ventures (AMPD.C), which has the honour of opening the CSE Thursday.
When CEO Anthony Brown confirmed his guest list with the CSE person responsible for ensuring the event goes well, she hesitated.
“No, I need your whole guest list… all the people coming, not just you,” she said.
“Yeah,” said Brown. “Believe me, I tried. I’ve got guys in India right now, Nova Scotia, BC, the US… I was going to fly them all in for the day but they’re too busy closing deals. The office is empty because we’re all in the sky.”
I can confirm this, as Brown tried to get me to wingman for him on the Toronto trip for most of the past week. A cold has kept me home but Brown has parlayed the TO spin into a tour of potential partners, investors, and customers.
“I’m in town for four days and it’s wall to wall meetings,” says Brown. “I apologize to anyone trying to call, but the only thing getting me out of the boardroom is the bell ringing, then it’s back to work.”
AMPD stock has taken a tumble of late, after a quick double from its public listing. Profit taking combined with a short attack in the last week has brought it back to pre-public financing levels, which may give investors who missed the go-public raise, and watched the stock double from there, a chance at a second bite.
“The stock performance in the last week has been frustrating,” says Brown, “but when we came public with such a tight share structure we knew it was going to be volatile in both directions. In tech industry terms, that’s a feature, not a bug. We’re not overly concerned in the short term because, on the operation side, we’re hiring like mad and filling the deal pipeline quickly, and we know that’ll put us in good stead going forward.”
The company most recently announced a completed deal with Bardel Entertainment, animators of TV’s Rick and Morty, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Magic: The Gathering, Puss in Boots, and Bob’s Burgers. Bardel will run video rendering through AMPD’s DC1 high performance computing data centre in Vancouver in a multi-year deal. Work on the companys second data centre continues.
— Chris Parry
FULL DISCLOSURE: The author is a shareholder in AMPD Ventures
