Briefcase – November 28, 2014

BRIEFS

After a six-week competition and vetting process involving City Council, staff and residents, the city of Lafayette approved and adopted a new logo design to replace the former logo that had been in use since 1982. More than 60 designs were submitted by the Oct. 1 competition deadline, and the winner was from Thull Time Design of Lafayette. Other finalists included Nuf Said Advertising of Lafayette, Uppercase Design of Louisville and Yellow House Design + Marketing of Erie.

Boulder-based Product Architects Inc., doing business as Polar Bottle, was one of five Colorado outdoor-recreation companies to receive an export grant from the state Office of Economic Development and International Trade to support its attendance at a trade show to be held Feb. 5-8 in Munich, Germany.

CLOSINGS

Bacco Italian Ristorante & Pizzeria closed Nov. 12 after more than a year at 1003 W. Horsetooth Road in Fort Collins, to be replaced by American-Asian fusion restaurant CosmoNoms, The new eatery planned a soft opening by the end of November.

CONTRACTS

Clovis Oncology Inc. (Nasdaq: CLVS) will collaborate with GlaxoSmithKline LLC on a clinical trial to evaluate lung cancer therapy with a combination of drugs being developed by the companies. The Phase 1 and 2 trial will involve giving Boulder-based Clovis’s rociletinib in combination with trametinib, a drug licensed by GlaxoSmithKline. The combo would be used to target mutant epidermal growth factor receptor on non-small cell lung cancer, which accounts for nearly 85 percent of all lung cancer cases worldwide. No financial details of the arrangement were announced.

Waypoint Films Inc., a video production company based in Boulder, was contracted by Denver-based creative agency Meme to produce a web spot for client KIA Motors Corp. The spot highlights the Kia Sedona’s new Smart Power Liftgate feature.

Boulder-based Real Capital Solutions retained Chanin Development Inc. for development of the 302 Maple Ave. property in Superior. The 0.96-acre property is zoned for six single-family residences. Development is set to begin in December.

The SOMAscan assay, a proteomics platform from Boulder-based SomaLogic Inc., will be deployed at the University of Colorado Denver’s Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora.

Boulder-based Zayo Group LLC, a provider of bandwidth infrastructure services, contracted with Digital Realty Trust Inc. (NYSE: DLR) to expand the Digital Realty direct-connect cloud offering. Through the agreement, Digital Realty customers will have the ability to access Zayo’s Connect to the Cloud platform, which offers access to more than 24 leading cloud providers including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and IBM SoftLayer. The option improves the user experience for enterprise customers by providing lower-latency connectivity, increased security, and lower bandwidth costs.

EARNINGS

Lightwave Logic Inc. (OTCQB: LWLG), which is pre-revenue, reported results for its fiscal third quarter ending Sept. 30, posting a net loss of about $1.2 million. The loss amounted to 2 cents per share, equal to the loss for the same period a year ago. Longmont-based Lightwave is working to create organic polymer materials that would speed up the transfer of data in optical computing devices.

Brazilian meatpacker JBS S.A. (Bovespa: JBSS3) earned $428.7 million during the third quarter, up from $86.4 million during the same period a year earlier. JBS S.A., the parent of Greeley-based JBS USA, posted third-quarter revenue of $12.1 billion, up from $9.5 billion during the same quarter last year. JBS USA Beef, which includes the Greeley beef processing plant, posted revenue of $2.3 billion, up from $1.8 billion.

Louisville-based biopharmaceutical company GlobeImmune Inc. (Nasdaq: BBIM), which went public in July, reported third-quarter revenue of $1.3 million, down from $2.3 million a year earlier. Net loss was $6.7 million, or $1.18 per share, compared with $3.9 million a year ago, before the initial public offering.

Woodward Inc. (Nasdaq: WWD) reported flat earnings for the fourth quarter but saw a jump in earnings for the 2014 fiscal year. Fort Collins-based Woodward earned $51.7 million during the fourth quarter ended Sept. 30, slightly down from $52.5 million during the same period a year earlier, Woodward makes control systems for the energy and aerospace markets. Fourth-quarter net sales totaled $565.4 million compared with $558.4 million for the fourth quart The company reported fourth-quarter aerospace sales of $318.2 million versus $307.4 million during the fourth quarter last year. Energy sales during the fourth quarter totaled $247.2 million vs. $251 million. For fiscal 2014, Woodward earned $165.8 million, up from $145.9 million the prior fiscal year. The company saw record net sales of $2 billon for the year versus $1.94 billion the prior fiscal year.

Gaiam Inc. (Nasdaq: GAIA), a provider of fitness and lifestyle-media products, reported a loss despite increased revenue for its third quarter that ended Sept. 30. The Louisville-based firm reported revenue of $41.3 million for the quarter, up 14.2 percent, compared with $36.2 million for the same period a year ago. But it incurred a loss of $3 million, or 12 cents per share, compared with income of $120,000, or 0.3 cents per share, for the same period a year ago. The prior year period included a $2 million gain from the sale of shares of Real Goods Solar stock, and $1 million of earnings from discontinued operations.

WhiteWave Foods Co. (NYSE: WWAV) reported significant growth for its third quarter that ended Sept. 30. The Broomfield-based maker and seller of plant-based foods and beverages, coffee creamers, dairy products and organic produce recorded revenue of $867 million for the quarter, a 34 percent increase compared with $639 million for the same period a year ago. Net income in the third quarter was up 45 percent, from $24.3 million last year to $42 million this year, with net income per share increasing from 14 cents to 23 cents. For the first nine months of the year, revenue was $2.5 billion compared with $1.8 billion in 2013. Net income was $108 million compared with $80 million, and net income per share was 62 cents compared with 46 cents.

Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc. (Nasdaq: CRZO) earned $83.8 million during the third quarter, up from $4.5 million during the same period a year earlier. Carrizo, which drills oil and gas wells in Weld County, posted revenue of $196.2 million during the period versus $144.3 million during the same quarter last year. In Northern Colorado, Carrizo drilled nine wells during the third quarter and completed seven other wells. Oil production totaled 2,300 barrels per day in the region’s Niobrara shale formation during the period, a 5-percent increase from the third quarter of last year.

PDC Energy Inc. (Nasdaq: PDCE) earned $54 million during the third quarter, up from a loss of $16 million during the same quarter a year earlier. Denver-based PDC Energy, which drills oil and natural-gas wells in Weld County, missed analyst expectations despite the higher earnings. Company shares fell 7 percent to $39.51. The company posted revenue of $224.6 million during the third quarter, up from $71.8 million during the same quarter last year.

Noble Energy Inc. (NYSE: NBL) doubled its third-quarter net income to $419 million from $205 million during same quarter last year. Noble Energy’s sales volumes in the Denver-Julesburg Basin, which includes territory in Northern Colorado

, averaged 102,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, up 15 percent from the same quarter a year earlier. The company blamed “third-party facility downtime” and problems with pipeline pressure for production that came in below expectations. The company, however, posted record quarterly horizontal production totaling 74,000 barrels of oil equivalent in the D.J. Basin during the third quarter, up 30 percent from the same quarter of last year. The company posted $1.3 billion in third-quarter revenue, down from $1.4 billion in revenue during the third quarter of last year.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp.’s (NYSE: APC) earnings rose to $1.1 billion during the third quarter compared with $182 million during the same quarter last year. Anadarko, one of the top oil and natural-gas producers in Weld County, said its third-quarter oil sales volumes averaged 189,000 barrels of oil equivalent in the Wattenberg field, which includes territory in Weld County. The company averaged 101,000 barrels of oil equivalent during the third quarter of last year. Anadarko posted revenue of $5 billion during the third quarter, up from $3.9 billion during the same quarter a year earlier.

Encana Corp.’s (NYSE: ECA) (TSX: ECA) earnings surged to $2.8 billion during the third quarter as it continues to shift from natural-gas to oil investments, up from $188 million during the same period a year earlier. Encana, a Calgary, Alberta-based company that drills oil and natural-gas wells in the Erie area, said it achieved a milestone by exceeding 100,000 barrels per day of total oil and natural-gas liquids production during the third quarter. Third-quarter oil production totaled about 62,100 barrels per day, up 128 percent compared with the same period in 2013. Natural gas liquids production during the third quarter averaged about 41,900 barrels per day, a year-over-year increase of 35 percent.

KUDOS

Boulder-based architecture firm Arch11 won an AIA Colorado Honor Award and an AIA Denver Merit Award for its design collaboration with Portland, Ore.-based ZGF Architects for Pearl Izumi’s North American corporate headquarters in Louisville. Engineering News Record also recognized the project with a Mountain States Best Projects Merit Award. The additional Citation Award from AIA Portland came in a ceremony there.

Northern Colorado-based Coan, Payton, & Payne, LLC was recognized by U.S. News & World Report along with Best Lawyers as one of the best law firms in America for 2015 iin the fields of corporate and real-estate law. Firms included in the 2015 “Best Law Firms” list are recognized for professional excellence with persistently impressive ratings from clients and peers.

Johnny Olson, Region 4 (Northern Colorado) director for the Colorado Department of Transportation, received the General Palmer award from the American Council of Engineering Companies of Colorado.

Colorado State University professor Temple Grandin was among four people to be inducted by the Colorado FFA Foundation into the Farm Credit Colorado Agriculture Hall of Fame. She will be inducted at a Feb. 26 banquet at the Renaissance Hotel in Denver.

Boulder-based Elevations Credit Union became the fourth organization in Colorado to receive the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation’s highest presidential honor for performance excellence through innovation, improvement and visionary leadership. Past Colorado winners of the award include Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins and Monfort College of Business at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley.

Dr. Stanley Henson was honored Oct. 26 at a reception for retired physicians presented by the Poudre Valley Hospital and Medical Center of the Rockies Foundation and hosted by Columbine Health System. A Fort Collins resident since 1956, Henson, 98, worked as a surgeon in Fort Collins for more than 50 years.

The Community Foundation of Northern Colorado was named 2014 Outstanding Foundation of the Year by the Colorado National Philanthropy Steering Committee. The award is presented to a grant-making foundation that has demonstrated exceptional commitment through financial support and by encouraging and motivating others to take leadership roles in philanthropy and the community.

Fort Collins’ MAX bus rapid transit system project received the “2014 Best Projects Award of Merit” in the “airports/transit” category from Engineering News-Record. The system is a project of Fort Collins-based engineering, program, project and construction management firm Ditesco.

Boulder-based Renewable Choice Energy will receive a 2014 Green Power Leadership Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency at the 2014 Renewable Energy Markets Conference on Dec. 3 in Sacramento, Calif.

The LulzBot Taz 4 3-D printer manufactured by Loveland-based Aleph Objects Inc. was named the “Most Maker Machine” in Make: Magazine’s “Ultimate Guide to 3D Printing 2015.”

Fort Collins-based New Belgium Brewing received a Susty award from the American Sustainable Business Council. The award recognizes leadership in driving policies that help build a more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable America.

Weld County’s accounting staff won its 33rd consecutive Excellence in Reporting Award from the nonprofit Government Finance Officers Association.

William Douglas Woody, a psychology professor at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, was named the 2015 A.M. and Jo Winchester Distinguished Scholar, one of the highest honors an educator can earn at UNC. The award is given annually by UNC’s Faculty Research and Publication Board to a professor who has shown excellence in scholarly activity in his or her field for at least five years through presentations and publications, memberships on panels, grants received and overall recognition from peers.

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

Houston-based oilfield-services company Halliburton Co. (NYSE: HAL) plans to acquire Baker Hughes Inc. (NYSE: HAL) in a stock-and-cash deal valued at $34.6 billion. Halliburton is said to perform most of the hydraulic fracturing services in Weld County. The company employs 1,200 people at a facility in Fort Lupton and 80,000 worldwide.

MOVES

Thirsty’s Liquor will close its store in the Safeway plaza at Mulberry Street and College Avenue at the end of the year and reopen in March at 1009 S. Lemay Ave., a space formerly housing the Bookends used-book store.

OPENINGS

Boulder-based Elevations Credit Union opened its first branch in Fort Collins on Nov. 20 at 1526 E. Harmony Road, Unit 130. Elevations, which serves more than 100,000 members in Boulder, Broomfield, Larimer and Adams counties, plans to open two additional branches in Fort Collins sometime early next year, probably near the Colorado State University campus.

Fort Collins Country Club plans a grand opening Saturday, Nov. 29, for its new tennis facility. Built by Heath Construction, it has three new indoor courts, the largest tennis spectator viewing area in the region, and an expanded 2,150-square-foot fitness and spa facility. A ribbon-cutting ceremony for members will be held from 5 to 7 p.m.

Real estate firm CBRE (NYSE: CBG) opened an office in Boulder at 1600 Range St. The Los Angeles-based firm has 350 offices worldwide including Fort Collins, Denver and Colorado Springs. Shane Bohart, first vice president, Katherine Mackintosh and Lindsey McCabe will provide buyer-representation services to local and national investors seeking off-market investment opportunities for various property types with a focus on health-care and assisted-living facilities and student-housing projects.

A fifth craft brewery in Longmont, Grossen Bart Brewery, opened Nov. 10 at 1025 Delaware Ave.

Denver-based Illegal Pete’s held a grand opening Nov. 13 for its first Fort Collins burrito shop at 320 Walnut St.

San Jose, Calif.-based SK hynix memory solutions opened an engineering office in Longmont that eventually could employ as many as 35 people. The company is a subsidiary of Korea-based SK hynix Inc., one of the world’s largest memory chipmakers and semiconductor companies. KHMS makes flash memory products. The company has begun staffing the new 9,462-square-foot engineering development center at 2400 Trade Centre Road with experts in the area of storage and firmware design.

Dr. Mark C. Loury opened Spring Creek Aesthetics, a facility offering facial rejuvenation services, in the Spring Creek Medical Park, 2001 S. Shields St., Fort Collins.

The Golden Wind, an acupuncture clinic with sound therapy and a therapy dog, opened Sept. 15 at 2525 Arapahoe Ave., C230, the former Village Frame Shop space next to Planned Parenthood in The Village Shopping Center in Boulder. The lease term on the 568 square foot space is five years.

Mental Health Partners leased office space at 2 Garden Center in Broomfield to complement its other office at 899 U.S. Highway 287, Suite 300. The new Garden Center space affords the nonprofit organization nearly 4,000 additional square feet to accommodate various service needs and will open for services Nov. 10. The organization also has multiple operating locations in Boulder and Longmont, as well as dozens of community-based service points.

Fort Collins-based Platte River Power Authority and Chicago-based Invenergy Wind LLC started commercial operations at Invenergy’s 32.5-megawatt Spring Canyon II Energy Center, located near Peetz, about 130 miles northeast of Fort Collins, Spring Canyon II utilizes 19 General Electric 1.7-100 wind turbines.

PRODUCT UPDATE

Boulder-based CRMCulture, a customer-relationship management consulting firm, released its first paid app, ActionGrid, available for download on the Salesforce AppExchange website. CRMCulture says the app allows users and administrators to manage data more efficiently and boost productivity on their Salesforce CRM. The app launch marks the company’s move into product development space.

Fort Collins-based OtterBox expanded its offering of National Football League smartphone cases to include the new Apple iPhone 6. Defender Series cases featuring all 32 NFL team logos are available now.

Boulder-based Lagrange Systems, a provider of cloud-based web and application performance software, released CloudMaestro Accelerator, the latest addition to the CloudMaestro solution. The web and mobile application accelerator speeds up sites by placing static content closer to the location of the web requester, optimizing static content automatically for different platforms including tablet, mobile and desktop, all while taking into consideration latency versus geo-location when serving up content.

Boulder-based Red Earth Software, developers of email management solutions, released Policy Patrol version 10, the latest update of its email security software for Microsoft Exchange Server. Policy Patrol 10 offers increased protection from email security risks with improved anti-phishing and integrated multi anti-malware scanning, along with an improved user interface and new dashboard.

Longmont-based Dot Hill Systems Corp. (Nasdaq:HILL), a supplier of innovative carrier and enterprise-class storage systems, unveiled the Dot Hill Ultra56 AssuredSAN, a hybrid flash storage array based on an ultra-density chassis that supports both NEBS Level 3 carrier and MIL-STD government requirements and up to 1.34 petabytes of raw capacity.

Boulder-based Isonas Inc., a pure-IP access-control system manufacturer, introduced a network-based PowerNet IP Reader-Controller, a patented technology that integrates with Windows-based software that eliminates the need for control panels at each access point, complex/costly wiring or power supplies, and regular maintenance across various locations.

SERVICES

Louisville-based Package Depot acquired a machine to manufacture bubble in its local warehouse, and can offer such features as large, small and third-web bubble, the option to slit bundles to any size, smaller retail rolls, anti-static bubble, and the ability to perforate.

Boulder-based Zayo Group LLC (NYSE: ZAYO), a provider of bandwidth infrastructure services, added Google Cloud Interconnect to its Connect to the Cloud program. Zayo is offering its customers connections to Google Cloud Platform via GCI, which provides business customers a direct connection to Google’s edge.

The Weld County Regional Communications Center launched a high-speed emergency notification system called CodeRED. The new system will replace the existing reverse notification system used to alert county residents of emergencies, and also will offer new features to subscribers including free weather notifications via text or email.

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