RM Crowd Heads North – Part I
By David Feldman at 3 July, 2010, 8:58 am
This is the first installment on observations and thoughts concerning this week’s Reverse Merger Conference in Toronto. There were a number of good panels as always, though attendance overall was down over previous years (probably due to the impending Canadian and US national holidays among other things).
Since we were in Canada, the first presentation was by John McCoach, head of the TSX Venture Exchange. He noted that the TSX index is up 11% in the last year, the exchange is big in cleantech, resources, energy, mining, technology and life sciences. Canada’s 130 million people represent 2% of the world’s GDP. The TSX Venture Exchange, now home to 2200 companies, has been around since 1999, and since then 450 companies have graduated to the full Toronto Stock Exchange. While the world was suffering, 2009 was the exchange’s biggest year in financings- about $65 billion, though admittedly most were “follow on” investments.
I learned a lot I didn’t know about the Great White North’s innovative venture exchange. It was frankly refreshing to be in a country where regulators encourage, support and assist smaller companies to obtain a public trading stock. More to come from Toronto!
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