Briefcase – January 2017

CLOSING

Boulder Brands will slash 27 jobs over the next two months as it completes the previously announced closure of its production facility at 1865 Range St. in Boulder. The division employs 73, but 46 of those workers will be offered jobs elsewhere within the company. The closure is scheduled to be complete by March 8. Boulder Brands parent, Pinnacle Foods Inc. (NYSE: PF), announced in August 2016 that it would shift production of Evol burritos to Fayetteville, Ark.

CONTRACTS

Biodesix Inc. in Boulder will partner with China-based Bioyong Technology Co. Ltd. for the joint development and commercialization of Biodesix’s blood test for patients with non-small cell lung cancer. Bioyong will pay Biodesix about $38 million over the life of the collaboration.

Boulder-based Namasté Solar has completed the installation of solar panels on the roof of the historic Colorado Trade Center in Denver. The 700,000-square-foot building at 5151 Bannock St., has been owned by private-equity firm Conscience Bay Co. since 2015. The cost of the three-month project that was completed Dec. 16 is not being released.

AES Distributed Energy Inc. in Boulder began construction on four solar-photovoltaic projects in California, and Broomfield-based RES Americas will work on 10 wind-energy projects throughout the United States. AES Distributed Energy’s projects combined total 11.3 megawatts of power. AES Distributed Energy, a subsidiary of The AES Corp. (NYSE: AES) based in Virginia, is partnering with Fresno, Calif.-based ImMODO Energy Services Corp. on the four projects that are going up in three cities — Delano, Manteca and Bakersfield. RES is partnering with Southern Power, a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Southern Co., to develop and construct approximately 3,000 megawatts of wind power across 10 projects in various U.S. regions. All projects are expected to achieve commercial operation between 2018 and 2020.

A week after terminating a stock-purchase agreement with Hong Kong-based Hybrid Kinetic Group Ltd., Longmont-based UQM Technologies Inc. (NYSE: UQM) began meetings with other potential partners.

Fort Collins-based Dohn Construction Inc. was awarded a contract by The Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society to renovate 20,000 square feet of apartment and recreational space at the Loveland Good Samaritan Village. Existing apartment space will be transformed into both a town center and wellness center for its residents.

KUDOS

More than 76,000 tons of waste generated by the redevelopment of the Foothills shopping mall in Fort Collins was diverted from the landfill, according to an independent report by the Institute for the Built Environment at Colorado State University. The study was a collaboration with the city, the mall developers and CSU. Some creative reuses of materials documented in the report: The steel purple coneflower sculpture at the Gardens on Spring Creek was crafted from salvaged rebar and galvanized metal wainscoting by Josh Jones, sculptor and welding supervisor at Gallegos Sanitation Inc. More than 50 trees demolished on site were milled by local furniture maker Baldwin Hardwoods into lumber that was sold to local woodworkers or made into countertops. Local furniture maker Wool Hat Furniture reclaimed gym flooring from the original Youth Activity Center on Monroe Avenue to make picture frames, tabletops, desks and benches. The original basketball floor also adorns the front desk at the new Foothills Activity Center inside the mall.

The Wall Street Journal named Beerito, the low-alcohol lager from Longmont-based Oskar Blues Brewery, one of the nation’s top regional brews. Oskar Blues first produced Beerito to celebrate the opening of its CyclHOPS bike-friendly restaurant in 2014. Beerito was created in collaboration with Troubador Malting of Fort Collins.

Betsy Markey, regional administrator of the Small Business Administration, presented Innosphere chief executive Mike Freeman with a $50,000 check for being one of three Colorado winners of the agency’s third annual Growth Accelerator Fund Competition, which draws attention and funding to parts of the country with gaps in the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS

Fort Collins-based Riverside Technology Inc. sold its consulting division to RTI International, based in Research Triangle Park, N.C. The division employs about 40 people and provides water-resources management and engineering services to clients worldwide. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The nonconsultation portion of Riverside will continue to be based in Fort Collins and serve its federal customers, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and others with scientific support services.

Chicken processor Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. (Nasdaq: PPC) completed the deal to acquire Minnesota-based GNP Co. for $350 million in cash. GNP Co, is a provider of premium branded chicken products in the upper Midwest. The deal gives Greeley-based Pilgrim’s control of GNP Co.’s Just Bare Certified Organic and Natural/American Human Certified/No-Antibiotics-Ever product lines, adding to Pilgrim’s own NAE and organic production.

A Texas-based banking group with branches in the Boulder Valley and Northern Colorado soon will be owned by another banking institution from the Lone Star State. Independent Bank Group Inc. (Nasdaq: IBTX), the holding company for Independent Bank, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Carlile Bancshares Inc. and its subsidiary, Northstar Bank, based in Denton, Texas. The deal is valued at $434 million. Northstar Bank operates 24 branches in Texas and 18 in Colorado, including in Firestone, Greeley, Johnstown, Longmont, Loveland and Milliken.

Shirazi Benefits, an independent insurance agency based in Greeley, joined 23 other insurance and financial services companies across the United States to form Deerfield, Ill.-based Alera Group, an employee-benefits, property/casualty, risk-management and wealth-management firm with about $158 million in revenue. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The Denver office of RMG-Rocky Mountain Group acquired CRE Design Engineering of Lakewood. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. In addition to the Denver office, RMG has a presence in Northern Colorado through its office in Evans that serves the Greeley area and another office in Colorado Springs.

Arlington Capital Partners, a Washington, D.C.-based private-equity firm, acquired Molecular Products Group Ltd., a manufacturer of chemistry-based air-purification products based in the United Kingdom. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The company has 47 production and administrative employees in Boulder at 6837 Winchester Circle. Molecular plans to move about 12 production employees to a 20,000-square-foot plant at 2000 Taylor Ave., in the Colorado Technology Center in Louisville in April. The company will keep about 35 production and administrative workers in Boulder.

Fort Collins-based Innosphere and Boulder-based Innovation Center of the Rockies merged effective Jan. 1, combining a pair of nonprofit incubators that serve tech startups and university innovations along the Front Range. The two organizations will join forces under the Innosphere flag, with ICR’s assets transferring to Innosphere. Both boards of directors have approved the deal. The merger will give Innosphere, which has offices in Fort Collins and Denver, a physical presence in Boulder County, where about a half dozen of its current client companies are based.

1933 Brewing, 4025 S. Mason St. in Fort Collins, was acquired by Zach Wilson and his fiancé, Laura Sickles. They purchased the brewery from Cody Pisacka. The brewery closed temporarily Dec. 31, with the new owners planning to reopen it at an undetermined date.

MOVES

SpotXchange Inc., a tech firm that provides a video-advertising platform for Internet publishers and broadcasters, will move its corporate headquarters from Westminster to Broomfield in May. SpotX, with more than 300 employees worldwide, has leased two floors totaling 38,730 square feet of Class A office space at 8181 Arista Place, a five-story, 90,000-square-foot mixed-use building in Broomfield. SpotX’s new headquarters will house 200 employees.

Boulder-based Droplet Measurement Technologies began the process of moving to Longmont and announced that Chicago-based investment firm Benford Capital Partners LLC has purchased a controlling stake in the company. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Droplet moved from 2545 Central Ave. in Boulder to 2400 Trade Centre Ave. in Longmont.

Points West Community Bank, a subsidiary of First Nebraska Bancs Inc., moved its main administrative office from Julesburg to Windsor. The official address maintained by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is now 1291 Main St. in Windsor. In addition to Julesburg and two full-service branches in Windsor, Points West also has branches in Greeley, Haxtun and Wellington.

Boulder-based gluten-free cracker-maker New Beat Foods plans to open a 2,400-square-foot production facility at 1254 Sherman Drive in Longmont, where the owner plans to grow from one employee to four.

NAME CHANGES

In the wake of its acquisition of Boulder-based BiOptix Diagnostics Inc., publicly traded company Venaxis Inc. officially changed its name to Bioptix Inc. The merged company, Bioptix Inc., also changed its ticker symbol from APPY to BIOP on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

Castle Rock-based Venaxis acquired BiOptix Diagnostics in September in an all-stock transaction worth $2.6 million, with Venaxis moving its operations and four full-time employees to BiOptix’s Boulder office at 1775 38th St.

OPENING

Best Western Hotels & Resorts opened the Best Western Plus Hudson Hotel that has 60 guest rooms and 27 suites. The hotel at 301 E. Bison Highway in Hudson is owned by Love’s Hospitality LLC, part of the Love’s Family of Companies based in Oklahoma City.

Irvine, Calif.-based bioscience firm ChromaDex Corp. (Nasdaq; CDXC) officially opened a research and development plant in Longmont on Jan. 5. ChromaDex has spent close to $1 million to renovate and install equipment in the 10,000 square feet it is leasing at 1751 S. Fordham St., Suite 350, in the Diagonal Tech Center.

Business incubator EnConnect Holding LLC, doing business as FVC Americas, leased space at 242 Linden St. in Fort Collins, formerly occupied by Denver-based Galvanize. FVC Mesh will be the brand name of the co-working spaces, and the building will be called Mesh Fort Collins.

Fabletics, the activewear company co-founded by actress Kate Hudson, plans to open a Boulder retail location this year, one of a dozen stores planned nationwide during the new year.

An owner and operator of indoor trampoline parks has leased space at the Village at Burlington shopping center in Longmont to open its third center and first in Colorado. Owners Shawn McCoul, David Gallup and Bruce Hansen of Wyoming formed Jump Craze Longmont LLC to lease the 28,000-square-foot building at 2215 Ken Pratt Blvd. from Niwot-based Burden Inc. The space previously housed a Sports Authority sporting goods store. McCool hopes to have it open by March.

Oskar Blues’ restaurant ownership group will open a restaurant and bar in the historic DeGraff Building in the heart of downtown Colorado Springs. Longmont-based Oskar Blues Fooderies expects the restaurant at 118 N. Tejon St., to be open by summer. It will occupy 15,000 square feet on two levels.

Colorado State University held a grand opening for an expanded and improved cancer unit at its Flint Animal Center in Fort Collins. The Lucy Oncology Clinic, named for a Rottweiler with bone cancer, occupies 4,100 square feet in CSU’s James L. Voss Veterinary Teaching Hospital.

PRODUCT UPDATE

VetDC Inc., a veterinary cancer-therapeutics company based in Fort Collins, was granted conditional approval of Tanovea-CA1, a treatment of lymphoma in dogs, from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine. The company said it expects that the drug will be available to veterinarians this spring.

Realtor Larry Kendall of Fort Collins has written a book based on his sales-training system. “Ninja Selling: Subtle Skills, Big Results” offers insights and case studies of Kendall’s “soft” approach to sales and business development that he says never puts sellers in the position of being rejected or causes customers to feel pressure. Kendall is a co-founder and chairman of The Group Inc., a real estate company based in Fort Collins that has 200 sales associates and six offices in Northern Colorado.

Fort Collins-based Solix Algredients Inc. announced that Solasta Astaxanthin has received the “Approved Quality” seal certification from ConsumerLab.com. Solasta is a natural astaxanthin extract produced from Haematococcus pluvialis (microalgae).

SERVICES

KGNU Community Radio purchased a translator that will allow it to broadcast in Fort Collins at 98.7 FM. KGNU, a volunteer-powered, listener-supported community radio station, can be heard at 88.5 FM in Boulder and Denver, 1390 AM in Denver and  93.7 FM in the Nederland. KGNU’s Boulder station, now located at 4700 Walnut St., began operations in 1978. The Denver studio at 700 Kalamath St., opened in 2006.

Banner Medical Group expanded operating hours for its two urgent-care clinics in Northern Colorado. Banner Summit View Urgent Care at 2001 70th Ave., Suite 110, in Greeley, and Banner Skyline Urgent Care at 2555 E. 13th St., Suite 110, in Loveland, will be open from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. daily.

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