Highlights from the 2020 Kensington Investor Conference
During these unprecedented times, Kensington hosted its very first virtual investor conference this year (view the trailer). Equipped with the flexibility of an online event, we had a record turnout of attendees, investors, key industry partners, portfolio funds and investee companies from across North America. The Kensington management team kicked off the day by providing an in-depth overview of the firm’s investment activities in 2020. The rest of the investor conference consisted of presentations from our portfolio companies with short sound bites sprinkled in between each presenter. If you were unable to join us, here is a quick recap of the virtual conference.
Eben Frankenberg, President and CEO of Echodyne, started the day with providing the audience with a high-level overview of the business. In brief, Echodyne designs and manufactures high-performance radars for government and commercial markets. During the presentation, he walked everyone through each product line and emphasized how revolutionary it was to offer high performance radars at commercial price points. He ended the presentation by describing various uses in industries such as defense, security, and autonomy.
We also had the pleasure of having Chris Friesen, President of Mint Smartwash join us to provide some background on how the company got started. Mint Smartwash is one of Kensington’s latest investments. The primary objective of Mint Smartwash is to create a time saving, economical, customer-focused car wash experience. During these unpredictable times, Chris mentioned that amidst the pandemic, the business continues to experience growth and remains stable. He concluded his segment by providing some insight into the company’s future growth and expansion plans.
Next up, Patrick Poulin, President and CEO of Element5 started his presentation by explaining the company’s offerings and examined several benefits of using prefabricated mass timber. An interesting fact that was raised during his presentation was that mass timber structures are faster to build and minimizes carbon emissions compared to regular steel and concrete structures. Patrick also highlighted the new ready-to-use production facility that was recently finished in St. Thomas, Ontario.
Switching to the Kensington in Healthcare segment, Kirk Hamilton and Martin Kent, Managing Directors at Kensington provided a quick overview of the trends and opportunities in the healthcare industry . Nearing the end of the discussion, two of Kensington’s portfolio companies, LifeSpeak, a digital wellness platform and Clearpoint Health, Canada’s largest health network of independent surgical and medical centres were featured.
To wrap up the conference, Glenn Cowan, the Founder of One9 Investments Inc. and Rick Nathan, Senior Managing Director at Kensington discussed how the relationship between Kensington and One9 Investments started. Glenn also described how his background in the Canadian Special Operations Forces has contributed to his unique perspective in today’s investment environment. To end off the virtual conference, O2 Canada, a leading manufacturer of reusable respirators was featured. The company was recently added to the Kensington portfolio.
We would like to give a big thanks to all the presenters for participating and attending our virtual investor conference. We would also like to thank everyone who took time out of their busy schedules to join us online this year. We hope to see all of you again next year!
For more details, or access to watch the entire conference, please contact investorrelations@kcpl.ca. Follow us on Twitter @kensingtonfunds
