MicroCap M&A: UGE Take Private - Why it Happened, Why Now, Lessons Learned with Nick Blitterswyk, CEO of UGE International

My guest on the show today is Nick Blitterswyk, CEO of UGE International. On May 29, 2024, UGE announced an arrangement agreement for going private transaction with NOVA Infrastructure Fund for an all-cash consideration of C$2.00 per common share, a 270% premium to the closing price of the common shares on May 28, 2024. The company officially closed the planned take-private transaction on August 15, 2024. Today's interview has a few factors at play here:

1. We've done quite a few interviews recently here, i.e., with Mathieu Martin and Paul Andreola, about how M&A has been hot, particularly in Canada, for the last 12-18 months, with no signs of slowing down.

2. I've known Nick now for almost 10 years, having first interviewed him back in 2015, and have covered the UGE journey from beginning to now conclusion of their life as a public company.

So, I wanted to share with you all a conversation about Nick's experience as a MicroCap public company CEO, what it means to run a MicroCap public company, what happened and why now was the time to go forward with the transaction to go private, lessons learned, insights to pass on about his experience being a MicroCap CEO and more! Now that the deal has officially closed, I really appreciated Nick's candor and hopefully a lot can be gleaned from this episode that the entire MicroCap space can learn from, as well as a glimpse behind the thought process when faced with the prospect of staying public vs. being acquired/going private.

For more information about UGE, please visit: https://ugei.com/

We're excited to announce that we'll be partnering up with MicroCapClub for our full slate of investor conferences in 2025. Ian Cassel and his team at MicroCapClub have not only built and fostered the best community of MicroCap investors, but it's arguably one of the best investing communities, period.

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