Deals of the Year finalists announced

BizWest has announced finalists for its inaugural “Deals of the Year” issue, honoring the top transactions in a variety of industries for 2015.

Deals could include mergers, acquisitions, construction projects, leases, sales, venture-capital funding and expansions. Nominations, which closed Dec. 31, are being evaluated by the BizWest editorial team, with consideration given to impact, complexity and size of the deal, both in terms of dollar volume and, when appropriate, square footage.

“We’re very excited to bring this new concept to readers of BizWest,” said Christopher Wood, publisher and editor. “The Boulder Valley and Northern Colorado have produced some amazing deals in many different sectors. We look forward to highlighting those transactions, delving into their impacts, and relating what’s next.”

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Nominations were submitted for the BizWest region of Boulder, Broomfield, Larimer and Weld counties. BizWest reserved the right to shift a nomination from one category to another, or to add or eliminate industry categories at its discretion.

Finalists and winners will be featured in a special edition of BizWest in early February. That edition also will feature the players behind the deals, and a look at how the deals came together.

Here are the finalists in each category:

 Apartments

Bell Partners Inc. of Greensboro, N.C., in April purchased the 1,206-unit Horizons at Rock Creek apartment complex in Superior for $250 million from Denver-based Simpson Housing LLLP and renamed it Bell Flatirons.

Invesco Real Estate, a division of Atlanta-based Invesco Ltd. (NYSE: IVZ), in April bought the 374-unit Retreat at the Flatirons under the entity Flatirons Apartments LLC for $94.5 million from Etkin Johnson Real Estate Partners.

Memphis, Tenn.-based EDR (NYSE: EDR), formerly known as Education Realty Trust, bought The Province student-housing complex in Boulder in September for $48.8 million, or nearly $581,000 per unit, from Ohio-based Edwards Student Housing Management Co.

 Banking and Finance

The merger of Premier Members Federal Credit Union and Boulder Valley Credit Union became effective May 1.

Boulder-based venture-capital firm Foundry Group in July closed its fifth $225 million investment fund, Foundry Venture Capital 2016 LP.

Boulder Ventures Ltd. in late April completed raising its sixth investment fund, worth $61 million, bringing the total raised during the past 20 years to $371 million.

Commercial Real Estate

Seattle-based real estate investment company Unico Properties LLC paid approximately $209 million to Boulder-based W.W. Reynolds in January for 1.5 million square feet of commercial property in Boulder and Fort Collins.

The city of Boulder formally closed in December on the $40 million purchase of the Boulder Community Health campus at the southwest corner of Balsam Avenue and Broadway.

Real estate investment firm Kinship Capital and investment firm/developer The John Buck Co., both based in Chicago, formed a new joint venture with current S’PARK developer Element Properties of Boulder and in late December paid a combined $18.5 million for the redevelopment of the former Sutherland’s lumber yard site at 3390 Valmont Road in Boulder, effectively buying out the Sutherland family’s stake in the $100 million mixed-use S’PARK project that is slated for demolition work to begin in the coming months.

Construction

A groundbreaking ceremony was held Aug. 4 for Phase 1 of Google Inc.’s new 300,000-square-foot campus near the intersection of 30th and Pearl streets in Boulder.

Colorado State University broke ground in August for a controversial $220 million, 36,000-seat on-campus football stadium in Fort Collins that is slated to open for the 2017 season.

Ground was broken in April at the site of the former Golden Buff Hotel and Eads Newsstand on the northwest corner of 28th Street and Canyon Boulevard in Boulder for a 203-room Embassy Suites hotel, a 172-room Hilton Garden Inn and a 42,000-square-foot office building, as part of a redevelopment spearheaded by Denver-based NAI Shames Makovsky and Boulder developer Lou DellaCava’s LJD Enterprises.

Economic Development

The 15-year-old Northern Colorado Economic Development Corp. turned over its resources to the recently established, privately funded Northern Colorado Economic Alliance.

The Fort Collins City Council in May approved $2.1 million in rebates of use tax and development fees that Woodward Inc. (Nasdaq: WWD) paid on its new 101-acre corporate campus on the site of the former Link-N-Greens golf course between Lincoln and Mulberry avenues and east of Lemay Avenue.

The Colorado Economic Development Commission in August added large areas in Larimer and Weld counties — as well as significant portions of Longmont, Broomfield and Lafayette — to its designated list of “Enterprise Zones” that enable businesses located there to qualify for a wide range of tax credits.

Food & Beverage

Belgium-based Anheuser-Busch-Inbev in August purchased Loveland-based American Eagle Distributing.

The parent company of meat processor JBS USA in Greeley in July received a commitment for up to $1.2 billion of long-term financing to be used with cash on hand to pay $1.45 billion for Cargill Inc.’s pork business in the United States.

Following in the footsteps of New Belgium Brewing in Fort Collins, Longmont-based Left Hand Brewing and Fort Collins-based Odell Brewing in July announced that the companies were moving forward with plans for employee ownership.

Health Care

University of Colorado Health won approval to build Longs Peak Hospital on the east edge of Longmont and partnered with Adeptus Health on a new hospital in Broomfield.

Banner Fort Collins Medical Center and adjoining Banner Health Center opened April 6 at Lady Moon Drive and East Harmony Road in southeast Fort Collins.

Longmont United Hospital and Centura Health in August completed an affiliation agreement under which LUH will be operated and managed by Centura in exchange for a long-term commitment of capital and resources.

 Hospitality & Tourism

The Colorado Economic Development Commission in December approved $86.1 million requested by the nonprofit Go NoCO to help developers shrink a funding gap and build the PeliGrande Resort and Conference Center in Windsor, The Indoor Waterpark Resort of the Rockies and the U.S. Whitewater Adventure Park in Loveland, and the Stanley Hotel Auditorium and Film Center in Estes Park.

Broomfield-based Vail Resorts Management Co. (NYSE MTN) continued its pattern of aggressive acquisition, acquiring Australia’s Perisher Ski Resort for $135 million.

The Colorado Senate in April approved a $350 million plan to put Colorado State University buildings at the National Western Stock Show site in Denver.

Jobs

Danish wind-turbine manufacturer Vestas Wind Systems A/S (OMX: VWS) announced plans to add 750 manufacturing jobs at its Windsor and Brighton factories.

Englewood-based Teletech Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: TTEC) said in August that it wanted to fill 600 new jobs at its call center in Greeley, which would bring its employee count at the center to 1,300.

SCL Health. which operates eight hospitals in Colorado, Kansas and Montana, in July finished moving some 360 employees from the Diamond Hill office complex in downtown Denver to the Interlocken business park in Broomfield.

 Natural/Organic

New Jersey-based Pinnacle Foods Inc. (NYSE: PF) struck a deal in November to acquire troubled packaged-foods company Boulder Brands (Nasdaq: BDBD) for $710 million — or $11 per share — and to assume about $265 million in Boulder Brands’ debt, bringing the full value of the deal to $975 million.

Meyer Natural Foods, a producer of natural-beef products, acquired 4.35 acres of vacant land at Centerra in Loveland from University of Colorado Health and plans to construct a building for its corporate headquarters.

WhiteWave Foods Co. (NYSE: WWAV) closed its $550 million acquisition of Vega and also struck a deal to acquire California-based Wallaby Yogurt Co. Inc., for about $125 million in cash.

 Retail

Twenty-three stores and seasonal kiosks were open for business Nov. 13 when Foothills, the Fort Collins shopping center that underwent a $313 million redevelopment project, held a holiday tree-lighting and other festivities.

Tenants began opening their doors in November at Village at the Peaks in Longmont, the redeveloped Twin Peaks Mall, but Whole Foods announced in December that its opening would be delayed 11 months.

A 250,000-square-foot Sheels sporting goods store in the 2534 development in Johnstown is expected to employ roughly 400 people when it opens in September 2017.

Technology

Seagate Technology plc (Nasdaq: STX) in October completed its $696 million acquisition of Longmont-based storage-technology company Dot Hill Systems Corp.

Houston-based CA Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: CA) in July completed its $480 million acquisition of Boulder-based Rally Software Development Corp. (NYSE: RALY), a provider of Agile development software and services.

All-flash storage systems maker SolidFire will continue its Boulder presence and its plans to move into the new, high-profile PearlWest development despite being acquired in December by Sunnyvale, Calif.-based NetApp (Nasdaq: NTAP) for $870 million in cash.

Venture Capital

Broomfield-based AppExtremes Inc., a developer of document generation and reporting applications operating under the trade name Conga, received a $70 million investment from Insight Venture Partners, a New York-based private-equity and venture-capital firm.

Broomfield-based Datavail Corp., a provider of remote database administration services, raised $47 million in funding led by New York City-based Catalyst Investors, which was joined in the round by Tahosa Capital and Lumerity Capital Partners, along with existing investors Boulder Ventures, Meritage Funds and MC Investment Fund.

Boulder-based robotic toymaker Sphero, which makes the toy version of the BB-8 droid from the new “Star Wars” movie, completed a new $45 million funding round.