Briefcase – July 8, 2016

CONTRACTS

One of the earliest adopters of Loveland-based Lightning Hybrids LLC’s hybrid conversion systems for medium- and heavy-duty fleet vehicles doubled down with an order for 32 more units. The new order from Kiessling Transit, a Norfolk, Mass.-based company that provides shuttle service for health-care transport, follows an order of 35 units in mid-2015. Kiessling also was one of the first firms to do a pilot run of Lightning Hybrid’s systems on its buses in 2013.

Ashley County Medical Center, a critical-access hospital in Crossett, Ark., is now using AccuDetect Computer-Aided Detection from Niwot-based Parascript for mammography.

KUDOS

Executives from three companies based in the Boulder Valley won EY Entrepreneur of the Year awards for the Mountain Desert region at a ceremony in Denver. Executives from eight local companies had been named finalists for the eight categories. Winners for the Mountain Desert region —which includes Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico — were selected by an independent judging panel made up of previous winners, leading chief executives, private investors and other business leaders from the region. CEO Andy Grolnick, chief technology officer and co-founder Chris Petersen and chief scientist and co-founder Phil Villella of Boulder-based cybersecurity firm LogRhythm Inc. won in the Security category. In the Consumer Products and Distribution category, CEO Paul Berberian of Boulder-based robotic-toy maker Sphero took home top honors. In the Transformational category, the chairman and CEO of Broomfield-based Vail Resorts, Rob Katz, was the winner. Winners from the regional competition will be considered for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year national program, with those winners to be announced in November at the Strategic Growth Forum in Palm Springs, Calif.

Joe Romano, who owns eight Domino’s stores in and around Boulder and Douglas counties, and co-owns 46 Domino’s pizza stores in Dallas and its surrounding areas, won the International Franchise Association Gold Franny Award for operational excellence — his eighth such award.

Boulder-based Foothills United Way was named Business of the Year by the Superior Chamber of Commerce at the chamber’s annual dinner and awards on June 7.

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

Metal beverage-can manufacturing giant Ball Corp. on June 30 completed the acquisition of rival Rexam PLC, with the final purchase price coming in at $6.1 billion in cash and equity. The deal also includes Broomfield-based Ball’s assumption of $2.4 billion of Rexam debt, as well as the divestment of about 20 plants around the world to Ardagh Group for $3.1 billion in cash to help satisfy regulators. The deal makes Ball the largest maker of beverage cans in the world., with 18,700 employees on five continents and pro forma 2015 net sales for the combined company of about $11 billion. The company now operates 75 metal beverage manufacturing facilities and joint ventures. Company officials said Ball’s headquarters will remain in Broomfield, while Rexam’s London headquarters is expected to close by the end of the year.

Benjamin Brickweg, a mergers and acquisitions adviser based in Erie, acquired the controlling interest in Mountain States Business Brokers, a business brokerage based in Fort Collins. The company is relaunching as the Scout & Spur Group and moved its headquarters to Broomfield. It maintains offices in Aspen, Fort Collins, Loveland, Steamboat Springs and Summit County. Ben Mahrle, founder of Mountain States Business Brokers, retains an ownership role in the Scout & Spur Group and will continue to serve clients in Northern Colorado.

Louisville-based Door to Door Organics is merging with Charlottesville, Va.-based online grocer Relay Foods in an all-stock deal. The companies, when the deal is complete later this year, will merge under a new name, although the new firm will keep operations in both headquarters cities.

Metal can manufacturing giant Ball Corp. (NYSE: BLL) has received regulatory approval in Brazil for the company’s proposed $6.7 billion acquisition of rival Rexam PLC, moving the deal one step closer to being finalized. Ball is still working to obtain final regulatory clearances in Europe and the United States. Announced in February of last year, the Ball-Rexam merger would create the world’s largest consumer packaging supplier, with command of more than 60 percent of the beverage-can market in North America, 69 percent in Europe and 74 percent in Brazil. The combined company would employ a workforce of about 22,500 employees across five continents and generate annual revenue of about $15 billion.

Health-care supply chain company Global Health Exchange LLC in Louisville acquired Omaha, Neb.-based H-Card LLC, which provides automated payment-management software and services to health-care providers and suppliers in the United States. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition, GHX’s second in 19 months, expands the company’s financial-products portfolio.

Medtronic Plc agreed to acquire ailing HeartWare International Inc. for $1.1 billion, adding more products to treat heart failure to the medical-device maker’s portfolio. Ireland-based Medtronic has a neurosurgery division based in Louisville, operating as Medtronic Navigation Inc. in the Colorado Technology Center. Medtronic’s subsidiary Covidien Ltd. operates a research and development division in Gunbarrel, northeast of Boulder, and has a hearing-aid division, Medtronic-Sophono, in Boulder. It is unclear how the acquisition might affect workers in Boulder. HeartWare makes surgical implants that mimic the heart’s blood-pumping function, known as ventricular assist devices. Medtronic (NYSE: MDT) will pay $58 a share in cash for Framingham, Mass.-based HeartWare (Nasdaq: HTWR).

Onsite Property Management Services in Fort Collins purchased the accounts of real estate management firm Realty Consultants of Colorado. Financial terms and the number of accounts were not disclosed. Dennis Maybon, owner of Fort Collins-based Realty Consultants since 1977, sold the accounts to clear the way for his retirement.

MOVES

Goleta, Calif.-based Deckers Brands — which owns several footwear brands, including Ugg and Teva — will later this summer move a call center from Flagstaff, Ariz., to Broomfield, where it eventually could employ as many as 250 people on a seasonal basis. The company is working on finalizing a lease for space at 11525 Main St., and company spokeswoman Mary Oeffling said the plan is to make the move in August. Deckers is planning a job fair for July 12-13 at 8300 Arista Place in Broomfield, focused primarily on hiring for 30 core leadership and call representative positions for the Broomfield site.

Whole Foods will close its regional office in Boulder by early next year as the company moves those operations to downtown Denver. The Austin, Texas-based natural grocer’s move will mean about 100 jobs going to the Denver site, a 38,000-square-foot building at 3012 Huron St. Whole Foods leases about 45,000 square feet at Boulder’s Twenty Ninth Street shopping center. The office oversees stores in Whole Foods’ Rocky Mountain Region, which includes Colorado, Kansas, Idaho, New Mexico and Utah.

The new owners of Custom Blending plan to move the spice and seasoning company from Fort Collins to Loveland. The company, acquired from Fort Collins-based Rodelle Inc. in February by Tom and Kristie Cotter, has leased 12,000 square feet of industrial space in southeast Loveland where the intent is to ramp up to 20 employees over the next couple of years.

Thompson Daviau Realty moved to a new office at 4450 Arapahoe Ave., Suite 100, in Boulder.

OPENINGS

Rick and Ivy Lee opened a Mooyah Burgers, Fries & Shakes fast-casual restaurant on June 20 in Lafayette Crossings, a retail center at U.S. Highway 287 and South Boulder Road in Lafayette. The restaurant occupies about 2,000 square feet at 520 W. South Boulder Road.

Skirt Sports, a 12-year-old company specializing in online sales of stylish sportswear for women, opened its first retail outlet and held a grand-opening celebration June 16. The store at 2795 Pearl St., Unit 102, in Boulder — about 1,000 square feet plus office space in back — is in a spot formerly home to a Pearle Vision Center. The address is a bit misleading, said founder and owner Nicole DeBoom, because the storefront faces the intersection of 28th and Spruce streets.

Creative Alignments, a six-year-old Boulder-based recruiting agency, opened a new office June 1 at 3463 Blake St., Suite 100, in Denver’s RiNo district after moving from space in the Galvanize facility at 1644 Platte St. in Lower Downtown. The Denver office has a total of eight employees at any given time, and the company has 21 employees overall. Founded in 2010, the company ranked first in 2015 and eighth in 2016 in Flight III of BizWest’s Mercury 100 list of the fastest-growing companies in the Boulder Valley. Its main office is at 4760 Walnut St., Suite 106, in Boulder.

Todd Geatches and Clayton Hartman signed a franchise deal to open 13 Toppers Pizza shops in Colorado and Wyoming, including several in Northern Colorado and the Boulder Valley, with an option to open 14 additional stores south of Denver. Geatches, who lives in Windsor, owns and operates three Taco John’s franchises in the area and operates six others for the Harold Holmes family through Mountain Restaurant Group LLC. Hartman is the chief investment officer for IFAM Capital’s office in Fort Collins, and is a board member for Taco John’s International. Geatches and Hartman recently formed the entity Rocky Top Management Inc. through which they will operate Toppers. Geatches said they plan to first open pizza shops in Fort Collins and Boulder and are in the process of securing locations near Colorado State University in Fort Collins and the University of Colorado in Boulder. He also is scouting for sites in Longmont, Brighton and Greeley, as well as Cheyenne and Laramie in Wyoming.

Several restaurants opened recently in Fort Collins. The Melt opened at the Foothills shopping area with a menu featuring grilled cheese sandwiches. The San Francisco-based chain also has locations in Longmont, Denver and Littleton. Also new at Foothills is Zoes Kitchen at 3100 S. College Ave., Suite 130, serving Mediterranean fare. Meanwhile, Himalayan Bistro opened at 2720 Council Tree Ave., Suite 184, in Front Range Village. The owners are Dawa Sherpa and his wife, Tashi. Dawn Sherpa has run the Mount Everest Café, 1113 W. Drake Road, for 14 years, and his sister and brother-in-law will take over daily management there.

SAS Manufacturing LLC, a 10-year-old Boulder-based manufacturing company that serves aerospace and other industries, opened a facility in Englewood equipped with 3-D printers and automated milling machines. SAS Manufacturing, a subsidiary of Special Aerospace Services LLC, bought the 12,500-square-foot building at 3737 S. Inca St. in 2015 from C&C Manufacturing, a nearly half-century-old business, and began upgrading the equipment and processes to meet the standards of clients in aerospace, aviation, energy, defense and the U.S. government. Special Aerospace Services LLC has offices at 3005 30th St. in Boulder, and its engineers work onsite with clients. It and its subsidiary employ about 60 people.

Village Cleaners, Closet & Storage Concepts, Phenix Salon Suites and Pho Huong Viet have signed leases to operate at the open-air Village at the Peaks shopping center along Hover Street in Longmont that previously was occupied by Twin Peaks Mall. Opening dates for these merchants has not been determined because they have permit and construction work ahead of them. Boulder Cleaners will open Village Cleaners in 1,198 square feet. It will be Boulder Cleaners’ fifth location in the region. It has stores in Boulder, Niwot, Gunbarrel and Louisville. Colorado Springs-based Phenix Salon Suites, a chain of hair salons that also sells its own line of hair and skin products, has a shop in Boulder and will occupy 5,000 square feet of space at Village at the Peaks. Longmont-based Closet & Storage Concepts offers custom high-end storage and design options for closets, offices and garages, and will occupy 1,318 square feet of space. Pho Huong Viet, a locally owned restaurant serving Asian cuisine with a focus on traditional Vietnamese dishes and fusion options, is taking 2,410 square feet of space.

Ben Keller launched The Growth Coach of Boulder, a business and sales coaching franchised business. Founded in Cincinnati, The Growth Coach sold its first franchise in 2003 and now is in more than 100 markets worldwide.

PRODUCT UPDATE

Broomfield-based Intelivideo announced new technology for the subscription video-on-demand industry. The Intelivideo Subscription Center is designed to make it simpler for companies of every size and type including health and fitness, film festivals and digital catalog firms to capitalize on the explosive growth of online video consumption. It offers a centralized toolkit for digital video content owners to create and grow a recurring revenue stream by harnessing the power of a subscription model.

Louisville-based Pivot3, a developer of hyperconverged infrastructure solutions, unveiled a product designed to take HCI from beyond targeted-use cases such as virtual desktop infrastructure, backup and disaster recovery and remote office/brand office, and into the full spectrum of data-center applications that IT organizations need to deliver. It’s the first product offering that leverages technology gained from Pivot3’s acquisition of PCIe flash array and Quality of Service innovator NexGen Storage in February.

SERVICES

A group of mental-health professionals launched healbright.com, a website that offers online mental-wellness courses on a variety of topics that are led by psychologists, psychotherapists and therapists. Boulder-based Heal Bright LLC was founded in 2015 by Bill Belanger, a therapist who serves as president and chief executive, along with clinical director Jamarie Geller and creative director Richard Fleming. The group began producing courses in December.

on Facebook on LinkedIn