I attended a panel discussion breakfast earlier this week that including a senior banker, an ABL specialist and an individual who is the President and CEO of Calgary based Alaris Royalty Corp. The discussion was around debt, the market, government regulation and the ability of companies to access the debt they need. It was interesting having Alaris included in the mix as they are not a debt lender per se but certainly offer companies the capital they need in a very interesting structure.
From what I understand Alaris started helping entrepreneurs over 9 years ago with their very simple and straight forward approach to investing capital into companies that do not necessarily need capital but could certainly benefit from the opportunity to take capital. It is probably better to visit their website and learn more about them on your own (www.alarisroyalty.com) but nevertheless I thought it would be a good example to share on the type of innovative thinking that the market can benefit from in great ways.
Imagine for a moment that you are an entrepreneur and own a great company with stable earnings. If you were given capital that did not involve a third party getting neck deep in your day to day activities and was compensated through your top line revenue and not your net income – how could your business do more? What if the money enabled your company to purchase a competitor? What if the capital invested was used to payout an existing shareholder? If your business had the opportunity to employ new capital without giving up control of management decisions and did not require burdensome reporting to a third party – how much more could your business do? Alaris has a track record of investing capital into companies to help them do more while giving entrepreneurs the autonomy they need to continue to be successful. Their formula for investing is unique to them and not available in the marketplace from other providers of capital.
It was very refreshing and encouraging to see a Calgary based company talking the talk and walking the talk as it relates to innovation. Capital and finance are generally very boring and dry topics to discuss however I think Alaris serves as a example of approaching old ideas in a fresh way.
