VANCOUVER, Aug. 10, 2015 /CNW/ - (TSX-V: PTF) Pender Growth
Fund (VCC) Inc. (the "Fund") is pleased to announce the acquisition
of one of its largest holdings, as well as details of the
consequent redemption of certain of its Class B and Class R
Preferred shares.
Sale of Monexa
The Fund has completed the sale of its interest in Monexa
Services Inc. ("Monexa"), netting the Fund aggregate cash proceeds
of $4.3 million at closing. The
Fund may also receive up to an additional $0.8 million to be held in escrow for 15
months.
Monexa's acquirer, Netsuite Inc. (www.netsuite.com) is a global
provider of cloud-based enterprise ERP/financial, CRM, ecommerce
and inventory solutions, with revenue in excess of US$500 million and a market cap of US$7 billion. Netsuite's interest in Monexa
is centered on Monexa's subscription commerce platform, which
allows businesses to efficiently manage complex product and service
billing requirements. Netsuite will integrate Monexa's billing
platform into its enterprise suite of cloud based solutions.
In addition to the technology, Netsuite placed a high value on
Monexa's team. Substantially all of Monexa's employees have now
joined Netsuite, and Monexa's Vancouver office will become the Netsuite
centre of excellence for its subscription billing solution. As
such, the transaction is good news for both the Fund and the local
technology industry.
Kelly Edmison, Chairman of the
Fund's Board of Directors, said, "Monexa was an important
investment for us. We held it for a long time. This
sale proves that in the venture business it is important to be
patient and determined. We are very pleased that the company has
been able to achieve such a good result. This would not have
been possible without the remarkable talents and dedication of many
people over the years. We would particularly like to thank
Curt Cranfield, Mark Sampson, Darren
Dumba, Rich Topham,
Neil McDonnell, John Jacobson, Garry
Rasmussen, Jayson Grant,
Garth Albright, Barry Yates and Bill
Schonbrun, all of whom were instrumental in the company's
successes."
Redemption Details
The Fund will use $2.8 million of
these proceeds to honour outstanding redemptions. All outstanding
redemption requests submitted in 2012 will be honoured as to 100%
and redemption requests submitted in 2013 will be honoured as to
50%. Pender expects to process these redemptions on or around
August 31, 2015.
The remaining portion of the 2013 redemptions and any subsequent
redemptions will be honoured as soon as another liquidity event
takes place that nets sufficient proceeds to the Fund. Although we
cannot predict when this event will take place, several of the
Fund's investments could be sold within the next 12 months.
This brings the total amount of redemptions that have been
honoured to $17.8 million.
After the redemptions announced in this release are paid, there
will be total of $3.3 million of
requested redemptions left outstanding and $3.0 million of unrequested redemptions. All
outstanding Class B and Class R shares are now eligible for
redemption.
SOURCE Pender Growth Fund (VCC) Inc.