Highlights from the 2022 Kensington Investor Conference
We had the pleasure of hosting our first in-person Kensington Investor Conference in over two years since the pandemic. The Kensington team was extremely excited to see and chat with all our attendees consisting of investors, key industry partners, portfolio funds and investee companies across North America.
The Kensington management team kicked off the day by providing an in-depth overview of the firm’s investment activities in 2022 and also addressed various market concerns. The rest of the investor conference consisted of presentations from our portfolio companies with short networking sessions sprinkled in between each segment. If you were unable to join us, here is a quick recap of the 2022 Kensington Investor Conference.
Kirk Hamilton, Managing Director at Kensington started the day by providing the audience with a high-level overview of the healthcare landscape and some background information about Resolute. Resolute is an investment that Kensington acquired this year in June 2022, a leading healthcare services business specializing in testing and treatment of Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA).
Later, Lisa Underhay, President and CEO of Resolute and Jordan Bruce, Principal at Kensington joined the stage to chat more in-depth about the business. Lisa began the session by defining OSA which is where an individual stops and restarts breathing repeatedly during sleep. Signs that people potentially have sleep apnea include loud snoring, significant daytime sleepiness, or consistent gasping for breath during slumber. Lisa also mentioned that sleep apnea is quite common amongst Canadians and people who experience these symptoms should get it checked.
During the presentation, Lisa walked through the entire patient journey and emphasized that Resolute focuses on being employee and patient-centric by providing the best care to its patients no matter where they are in their journey. Kirk and Lisa ended the presentation by describing several new initiatives and growth plans for the business. As of now, Resolute has clinics that span across Canada, that help diagnose and treat sleep apnea and has become the largest independently owned sleep apnea treatment company in the country.
Switching to the discussion panel featuring Kirk Hamilton, Managing Director from Kensington as the moderator, John Bailey from Knox Lane started the session by sharing a story about one of his deals that closed amidst the pandemic in New York and how different the process was during this time. Arjun Sethi, Co-Founder and Partner at Tribe Capital later chimed in that San Francisco is no longer the only tech hub and now looks for investments across the US and all over the world.
Later, John Bailey mentioned that the global supply chain crisis has impacted their portfolio companies, but they collaborate with these companies from the very beginning to gain a strategic source of supply and push to be first in the pecking order to ensure inventory availability.
Talent on the other hand has also been a critical issue, especially in the last couple of years since hiring and retaining talent has been harder than ever. Arjun touched upon how recently, the public sector has been cutting costs and now more than ever, public, and private market compensation have begun to look remarkably similar, and it is causing talent to move around. In terms of internal hires, they try to hire people that they have already worked with for several years, but he also stressed that it takes time to convince people to move to a completely different compensation structure.
Next up, Mark Bordo, Co-Founder and CEO of Vetster Inc. started the session by explaining a little bit about his background and experience, with Vetster being his third company. On Vetster, the app allows you to find a veterinarian that suits you and your pet with the ability to have one-on-one consultation anytime, anywhere. Mark shared an experience where one day, his dog woke up shaking out of the blue, he was able to immediately go on a one-on-one consult with a veterinarian via Vetster, which gave him the ability to save time and pick up his pet’s medication at his local drug store. Mark mentioned that the global pet market continues to grow, especially during covid where it welcomed an influx of new pet owners. Millennials continue to account for a significant percentage of all pet ownership, and their reliance on and willingness to adopt technology pushes the pet care space for the better by demanding a higher level of care.
Next up, Mark Ang, Co-Founder and CEO of GoBolt started his presentation by explaining the company’s origin under the brand Second Closet, a consumer storage company that would store and return items to individual customers with the goal of helping people maximize their space. Eventually, based on the needs of the market, it grew to something bigger. It completed several rounds of funding and now looks to become the largest sustainable logistics company in the world. An interesting fact that was raised during his presentation was that their entire fleet is owned, meaning that the business is first-party end-to-end. This gives customers the opportunity to follow their package from point A to B. Lastly, Mark emphasized that the company continues to put sustainability at the centre of its operations and support other initiatives to reach carbon negativity.
Next up, Mike Ritchie, President and CEO of Arrow Machine and Fabrication Group started his presentation by explaining that Arrow Machine and Fabrication Group is a roll-up in the global machining and fabrication space. The company comprises three groups: automotive and EV, engineered products, and offroad. Arrow serves industries spanning from agriculture and forestry, material handling, rail, defence, construction and automotive. In terms of size and scale perspective, there are very few companies in the space that has similar capabilities as Arrow. In terms of the off-road space, customers now are looking for a one-stop shop that covers everything from design and production to the shipping of the final product. The engineered product focuses on building and designing projects for nuclear, architectural, defence and industrial clients that usually have higher margins because of their highly specialized components and systems. Lastly, Mike mentions that these different lines of business are critical to their expansion since each line of business can give and take from each other by sharing knowledge to help create a better product and experience for their customers.
We would like to give a big thanks to all the presenters for participating and attending our in-person investor conference. We would also like to thank everyone who took time out of their busy schedules to join us 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.
