Briefcase – Aug. 7, 2015

CONTRACTS

General contractor Evergreen Industrial Ltd. in Loveland and Centennial-based Downslope Consulting partnered to create an organization that caters to distilleries wanting to build or expand. The partnership, Distilling Consultants, will provide a range of services to the distillation industry, ranging from initial project conception to final buildout of production/distillation space. One-year-old Evergreen, co-owned by Lafe Herrick and Curt Brinker, will provide construction services, and Mitch Abate’s Downslope Consulting will use its knowledge of the distillation process.

Broomfield-based Wine Country Network Inc., a multi-platform media and event company, partnered with Big Sky Resort in Montana to produce a Pairsine Chefs Fine Food and Wine Pairing Competition during the Vine and Dine Festival on Aug. 13.

The Boulder Chamber teamed with Anthem BlueCross BlueShield and InTandem, a Colorado-based professional employer organization, to create a program that gives its members

access to customized health-care insurance coverage at large group rates. The partnership with InTandem will provide participating members with support in their compliance with new federal health-care insurance laws.

Broomfield-based Webroot, which makes intelligent cybersecurity for endpoints and collective-threat intelligence, partnered with Mitsui Bussan Secure Direction, a provider of Internet security and IT management services and solutions. The partnership offers MBSD managed security services a highly distributed and cooperative learning system to deliver cybersecurity solutions to Japan.

EARNINGS

UQM Technologies Inc. (NYSE: UQM) saw its net loss widen in the first quarter of its 2016 fiscal year as revenue declined by more than 25 percent versus the same period a year ago. The Longmont-based company released its earnings report for the period ending June 30, posting a loss of $2.2 million, or 6 cents per common share. That’s compared to a loss of $1.3 million, or 3 cents per share, last year. Revenue fell from $1 million for the period last year to $741,000 this year. UQM makes electric motors, generators, power electronic controllers and fuel cell compressors for commercial trucks and the marine, military and industrial markets.

Satellite-imagery provider DigitalGlobe Inc. (NYSE: DGI) saw second-quarter profit nearly double and revenue climb 12.8 percent versus the same period a year ago. DigitalGlobe, which completed the move of its headquarters from, Longmont to Westminster, reported financial results for the three-month period ending June 30. The company posted net income available to common stockholders of $6.7 million, or 9 cents per share, up from $3.9 million, or 5 cents per share a year ago. Revenue increased from $157.8 million in the second quarter of last year to $178 million this year. Much of the sales gain came from U.S. government contracts, where the company saw revenue climb 18.4 percent to $113.1 million. But commercial revenue still grew 4.2 percent to $64.9 million.

Shoemaker Crocs Inc. (Nasdaq: CROX) reported a decline in profits for its second quarter that ended June 30 compared with the same period a year ago. The Niwot-based company posted a profit of $13.4 million on sales of $347.7 million for the quarter, compared with a profit of $23.3 million on sales of $376.9 million for the second quarter of last year. Earnings per share for the quarter was 11 cents, a decline from 19 cents per share for the same period a year ago. For the first six months of the year, sales totaled $607.9 million, down from $689.3 million for the same period last year. Profit dropped 66 percent, from $32.4 million for the first six months of 2014 to $11 million so far this year.

Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. (Nasdaq: PPC) reported a 27 percent increase in profit for its second quarter that ended June 28 compared with the same quarter a year ago. The Greeley-based operator of chicken-processing plants and prepared-foods facilities posted a profit of $241.5 million on $2.05 billion in sales for the quarter compared with a profit of $190.4 million on sales of $2.2 billion during the same quarter a year ago. Income per share for the quarter was 93 cents compared with 73 cents for the same quarter a year ago.

Sales growth in its aerospace segment wasn’t enough for Woodward Inc. (Nasdaq: WWD) to offset declines in its energy segment in the company’s third fiscal quarter ending June 30. Fort Collins-based Woodward saw both profit and revenue decline slightly compared with the same period a year ago. Woodward makes components and control-system solutions geared toward energy efficiency for the aerospace and energy industries. Net income for the company slid to $43.8 million, or 66 cents per share, in the third quarter, down from $46 million, or 69 cents per share a year earlier. Revenue, meanwhile, dropped from $524.3 million last year to $494.8 million this year. Aerospace sales climbed 5 percent to $288.5 million during the quarter.

Heska Corp. (Nasdaq: HSKA) reported a 51 percent increase in profit for its second quarter that ended June 30, compared with the same quarter a year ago. The Loveland-based provider of advanced veterinary diagnostic products recorded a $1.2 million profit on revenue of $23.9 million, compared with a profit of $778,000 on revenue of $22.9 million for the same quarter a year ago. Income per share remained steady at 17 cents. As of June 30, Heska had $6.6 million in cash and working capital of $20.4 million. Stockholders’ equity increased to $56.6 million compared with $53.1 million as of Dec. 31, according to the earnings report.

Level 3 Communications Inc. (NYSE: LVLT) posted a net loss of $13 million for the second quarter, ending the Broomfield-based telecommunications company’s string of quarterly profits at six. The loss amounted to 4 cents per diluted share and included a $163 million hit due to “the extinguishment and modification of debt related to refinancing transactions.” The loss compared to a profit of $45 million, or 13 cents per share, for the same period a year ago, assuming the acquisition of tw telecom had occurred on Jan. 1 of last year. Level 3 closed its acquisition of tw telecom in October. Revenue, meanwhile, grew slightly, up from $2.03 billion last year to $2.06 billion this year.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp., one of the major oil and gas producers in Weld County, rebounded from first-quarter losses, posting second-quarter earnings and revenue figures that exceeded analysts’ forecasts. Anadarko (NYSE: APC), based in The Woodlands, Texas, reported earnings of 1 cent per share and revenue of $2.64 billion for the period, beating analysts’ predictions of a 53-cent-per-share loss and revenue of $2.57 billion respectively. Anadarko reported second-quarter profit of $61 million. Net cash flow from operating activities in the second quarter was $1.243 billion, and discretionary cash flow from operations totaled $1.373 billion. During the quarter, Anadarko averaged 101,000 barrels of oil per day in the Wattenberg field in northeastern Colorado. It reported that it has realized a significant reduction in drilling cost per foot over a two-year period and is drilling new Wattenberg horizontal wells for approximately $1 million per well. It also started a 300-million-cubic-feet-per-day Lancaster II cryogenic expansion, providing additional growth capacity for the Wattenberg field.

Metalworking firm Dynamic Materials Inc. (Nasdaq: BOOM) reported a loss of $1.3 million and 10 cents per share for its second quarter that ended June 30. The Boulder-based company’s sales declined to $44.7 million for the quarter from $51.9 million for the same period a year ago. The $1.3 million loss brings the company’s six-month losses to $3.7 million. For the same periods a year ago, Dynamic Materials posted a profit of $2.3 million for the quarter and $3.8 million for the first six months.

Calgary, Alberta-based Encana (TSX: ECA)(NYSE: ECA), one of the largest oil and gas producers in Weld County, reported a $1.6 billion net loss for the three months that ended June 30, highlighted by a $1.3 billion impairment charge. The loss was slightly better than the $1.7 billion loss it revealed in the first quarter. It reported an operating loss of $167 million, or 20 cents a share, and cash flow of $181 million, or 22 cents a share. In the same quarter last year, Encana had reported cash flow of $656 million, or 89 cents a share, a net profit of $271 million and an operating profit of $171 million. The company spent $125 million, mainly on severance pay, since late 2013. It set aside $58 more this year for severance and transition costs, and already has paid out $30 million of it.

Oilfield services company Halliburton Co. (NYSE: HAL) reported a 93 percent decrease in second-quarter profit versus the same period a year ago as the energy industry continues to battle low crude oil prices. Houston-based Halliburton – which has a facility in Fort Lupton and performs hydraulic fracturing for companies in Weld County and elsewhere in Colorado – posted net income of $54 million, or 6 cents per diluted share, for the second quarter ending June 30. That was down from $774 million, or 91 cents per share, a year ago. The sharp decline was less pronounced than the first quarter, when the company swung to a net loss of $643 million after a profit of $622 million the year before. Revenue for the second quarter this year was $5.9 billion, down from $8.2 billion in 2014, a year in which the company recorded a record $32.9 billion in revenue for the year. The most recent quarterly revenue was down from $7.1 billion in the first quarter of this year as rig counts in the United States and worldwide continued to drop.

KUDOS

Three area hospitals were ranked among the best in Colorado by U.S. News & World Report in its annual rankings. University of Colorado Health’s Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins was ranked in a three-way tie for fourth place in the magazine’s overall statewide rankings, while Good Samaritan Hospital in Lafayette and UCHealth’s Medical Center of the Rockies in Loveland were in a three-way tie for seventh.

Boulder Power Technologies’ PowerTap 2000 was recognized for a Mobile Power Excellence award by Mobility Tech Zone, a subsidiary of TMC.

Fort Collins Utilities was recognized as the first utility in Colorado, and among the first in the nation, to receive the Directors Award in the Partnership for Safe Water’s Distribution System Optimization Program.

Dave Wright, founder and chief executive of SolidFire Inc. in Boulder, and Paul Spencer, founder and CEO of Clean Energy Collective LLC in Louisville, were named Entrepreneurs of the Year in the Mountain Desert region by Ernst & Young, a provider of assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services. They were among nine winners selected in the region that includes Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. National winners will be announced Nov. 14 in Palm Springs, Calif.

Flagstaff House restaurant in Boulder won Wine Spectator’s Grand Award for the 32nd consecutive year.

Eight breweries in Northern Colorado and the Boulder Valley won medals over the Fourth of July weekend at the 2015 U.S. Open Beer Championships held in Oxford, Ohio. New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins, Oskar Blues Brewery in Longmont and Bootstrap Brewing in Niwot won gold medals in the competition that had 4,000 beers in 90 categories submitted by brewers from 20 countries. New Belgium, Liquid Mechanics in Lafayette and Verboten Brewing in Loveland scored multiple medals. Also winning medals were Boulder Beer Co. of Boulder, City Star Brewing of Berthoud and WeldWerks Brewing of Greeley.

Brinkman Partners of Fort Collins was named ColoradoBiz magazine’s runner-up for the publication’s Best of Colorado Reader’s Choice list. Their construction services group was honored in the Commercial Builder category.

Shelly D. Merritt of S.D. Merritt & Associates PC in Boulder was selected for inclusion in U.S. News’ 2015 Colorado Super Lawyers.

DiaResQ, a product for pediatric infectious diarrhea from PanTheryx Inc. in Boulder, was selected in Reimagining Global Health, the inaugural report of the Innovation Countdown 2030 initiative, as one of the 30 leading healthcare innovations with great promise to transform global health by 2030 and to help accelerate progress toward the new health targets proposed in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Loveland-based AlphaGraphics business centers dominated the 2015 Quick Printing magazine Top 100 listing of small commercial printers. With 22 stores represented, more AlphaGraphics centers made the top 100 than all their competitors combined.

Martha Kiger, senior client service associate at The Millstone Evans Group of Raymond James and Associates, a financial-planning firm with offices in Boulder, Denver and Washington, D.C., won the Raymond James “Star of the Quarter Award.”

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

Stockholders of Noble Energy Inc., (NYSE: NBL), one of the major oil and gas drillers in Northern Colorado, approved the acquisition of Rosetta Resources Inc. The $2.1 billion deal gives Noble its first foothold in the Eagle Ford and Permian shale plays in Texas. Houston-based Noble acquires about 50,000 net acres in the Eagle Ford and 56,000 net acres in the Permian. Rosetta, which was also based in Houston, becomes a subsidiary of Noble as part of the deal.

A Loveland-based manufacturer of analytical instruments used for water testing successfully completed acquisition of a data-collection company based in Sterling, Va. Hach Co., a unit of Danaher Corp., acquired the shares of Sutron Corp. (Nasdaq: STRN) through its affiliate, Satellite Acquisition Corp. That purchase means Satellite Acquisition owns about 91.3 percent of Sutron’s outstanding shares and thus can complete and close the merger and acquisition of Sutron without stockholder approval. As part of the acquisition, Sutron’s shares no longer will be traded, and any outstanding shares will be paid off in cash at $8.50 per share, minus fees and withholding taxes.

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

MakeMusic Inc., a Boulder-based maker of SmartMusic interactive music-learning software, acquired Weezic, based in Paris, an interactive music practice tool that provides accompaniment and assessment for student performers. Through the acquisition, MakeMusic SAS will be established in Paris.

KKFN-FM, licensed to Longmont and branded as “1043 The Fan,” is among several Denver-area radio stations to be acquired by Salt Lake City-based Bonneville International Corp. as part of a complicated transaction involving Bala Cynwyd, Pa.-based Entercom Communications Corp. (NYSE: ETM) and Radnor, Pa.-based Lincoln National Corp. (NYSE: LNC) that was required to meet federal rules about station ownership.

The Waddington Group, parent company of Boulder-based Eco Products, is being sold by Connecticut private equity firm Olympus Partners for $1.35 billion to Florida-based consumer products company Jarden Corp.

Regional accounting and advisory firm Eide Bailly LLP is acquiring Kyazma Business Consulting of Lehi, Utah, to boost its technology-consulting practice. Eide Bailly has offices in Fort Collins, Boulder, Denver, Grand Junction and Golden in Colorado.

Greeley-based JBS USA entered into an agreement to acquire Cargill’s U.S.-based pork business for $1.45 billion.

MOVES

The DaVinci Institute, which dubs itself a “futurist think tank,” will move its headquarters from Louisville to Westminster. DaVinci will occupy the top floor of the Compass Bank building at 9191 Sheridan Blvd., vacating its current space at 511 E. South Boulder Road.

Longmont-based DigitalGlobe Inc. (NYSE: DGI) completed the move of personnel into its new corporate headquarters in Westminster. The milestone makes official a move that the satellite-imagery provider first announced in 2013, although the company plans to maintain a “significant presence in Longmont for the foreseeable future.” The company is now based at 1300 W. 120th Ave., the former home of telecommunications company Avaya Inc., although DigitalGlobe is still working on renovations to the 480,000-square-foot building where it could someday house more than 1,000 employees.

California-based software-as-a-service company Alteryx Inc. moved its rapidly growing Boulder office to Broomfield, with plans of making roughly 100 new hires by the end of 2016. Alteryx did the bulk of its move from 3825 Iris Ave., in Boulder on July 20 and is now putting finishing touches on its new digs at 12303 Airport Way in Broomfield.

SCL Health’s move of its corporate headquarters to Broomfield is complete. The health system, which operates eight hospitals in Colorado, Kansas and Montana, finished moving some 360 employees from the Diamond Hill office complex in downtown Denver. The move brings SCL’s presence in Broomfield to 920 employees, a figure that could grow by as many as 150 in coming years. SCL already had 113,839 square feet of space in one building of the Interlocken business park at 500 Eldorado Blvd. It has now added more than 104,000 square feet in a separate building in the park.

HiViz Shooting Systems, a manufacturer of fiberoptic gun sights, was completing its move from 1941 Heath Parkway in Fort Collins to 620 S. Adams St. in Laramie, Wyo.

Software firm Envysion Inc. in Louisville plans to move operations to a larger facility at 100 Superior Plaza Way in Superior next month and hire 30 people in sales and technical roles in the next three months.

After nearly 30 years in Boston, Shambhala Publications, known for its religion and Buddhist books as well as its cooking and creative-living titles, will return to Boulder in September. The press moved to Boulder in 1976 from its original home in Berkeley, Calif., to be closer to many of its authors and to the Naropa Institute, now Naropa University. Shambhala left Boulder for Boston in 1985.

NAME CHANGES

Touchstone Health Partners changed its name to SummitStone Health Partners on July 27.

OPENINGS

PizzaRev, a build-your-own artisanal pizza restaurant, will celebrate the grand opening of its first Colorado store by hosting a “Pizzas for a Purpose” fundraising event from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Aug. 13 at 1650 28th St., Suite 1228, in the Twenty Ninth Street shopping area in Boulder. Guests are invited to “pay what they want” for a custom-built, personal-sized pizza, with a suggested $8 contribution. PizzaRev Boulder will give all donations to giveSPORTS, a partnership between the I Have a Dream Foundation and A Precious Child that provides new and gently-used sports equipment and fee scholarships to children. Randy and Deanna Chilton and longtime restaurateur Doug Koch own PizzaRev Boulder.

Harmony Foundation Inc., a 45-year-old nonprofit drug and alcohol treatment center, was to conduct a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 2 p.m. Friday, Aug. 7, for its new $5 million detoxification center in Estes Park. The Howie Madigan Admissions Center is a 10,000-square-foot building at 1600 Fish Hatchery Road on the nonprofit’s 43-acre campus.

The recently formed Northern Colorado Economic Alliance opened an office at 1615 Foxtrail Drive, Suite 130 in Loveland.

Andy Hensler, an attorney and former business executive with more than 15 years of experience, formed Huperetes Advisors Ltd. in Broomfield.

The Eaton Industrial Rail Park, encompassing more than 200 acres including the original 43 acres that once housed the Great Western Sugar Co.’s Eaton operation, has opened. The park also includes another 145 acres owned by Harsh International owner Andy Brown and about 90 additional acres owned by Omaha Track. The original 43-acre tract is now leased to Omaha Track by the town, but the sale of that land to Omaha Track – for $750,000 – is scheduled to close in the fall.

Wibby Brewing will hold its grand-opening celebration over Labor Day weekend, but will let its first batches of beer determine the actual day. The brewery is the first business that will open as part of the redevelopment of the former Butterball turkey plant in downtown Longmont.

Husband and wife Rex Schweers and Brenda Black opened a Dickey’s Barbecue Pit franchise at 104 E. 29th St. in Loveland. The couple also operates a Dickey’s franchise in Fort Collins at 2721 S. College Ave. Dallas-based Dickey’s Barbecue Restaurants Inc. was founded in 1941 by Travis Dickey and has more than 500 locations in 43 states.

Freshii, a “health-casual, fresh food concept,” will open Aug. 17 at 1335 Broadway on The Hill in Boulder. Its menu will include breakfast, soups, salads, wraps, bowls, burritos, frozen yogurt, juices and smoothies.

PRODUCT UPDATE

New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins introduced Long Table Farmhouse Ale, a golden ale with a billowy head. Its Belgian yeast creates a burst of pineapple and banana, and grains of Munich, pale malt and rye lend a wash of toasty, spicy bread.

Longmont-based Dot Hill Systems Corp. (Nasdaq: HILL), a supplier of innovative enterprise-class storage systems, was awarded a patent related to the company’s RealStream software technology.

The iOS smartphone technology for water-quality monitoring from Fort Collins-based In Situ Inc. now is available on Android operating systems. The new VuSitu Mobile App expands the functionality of the iSitu Mobile App to Android users and eliminates the need for bulky, expensive, handheld meters.

Boulder-based amplifire, learning software for the education, test prep, health-care and corporate markets, now enables user interface translation for multiple languages. The new localization feature determines a user’s browser language selection and translates all buttons, commands, and other amplifire interface features into that language. Today, amplifire’s localization feature allows for platform translation into Spanish, German, French or Portuguese.

Longmont-based IONU Security Inc., a provider of security that protects critical, distributed information wherever it resides or travels, announced its Data-centric Security Platform. The company says its patented security protects data at all times while allowing it to flow freely and securely anywhere, without the need for plug-ins, proxies, gateways or any changes in user behavior. IONU’s data isolation creates a separate and secure “zone” where data is insulated from the outside world.

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