NANAIMO BUSINESS BROKER MICHAEL NAPRAWA EARNS RARE M&AMI CERTIFICATION
NANAIMO – Nanaimo’s Michael Naprawa of iBC Business Brokers Inc. received his Merger & Acquisition Master Intermediary (M&AMI) certification from M&A Source® November 16, 2019. This certification makes him one of only nine Canadian business broker professionals with this designation. Naprawa has been a successful business broker since 2005, handling the complex sales of multiple western Canadian businesses. After earning the International Business Broker Association’s CBI certification in 2007, he [...]
FRESH STARTS ON ISLAND FACILITATED BY iBC BUSINESS BROKERS
Dwayne and Lisa Norman are enjoying life on Vancouver Island. September was fresh start for two Port Alberni couples: newcomers Dwayne and Lisa Norman who purchased Paulette’s Cleaning Services Ltd., and Detlev and Anke Braatz, who sold the 30-year-old business. Sale broker was Michael Naprawa of Nanaimo-based iBC Business Brokers Inc. He had sold Paulette’s to Detlev and Anke a decade earlier, so when they were ready to [...]
TRUCKING JOB FRAUD EXPLOITS IMMIGRANTS & RISKS LIVES
A semi-trailer truck flipped on its side, a stock photo which illustrates the danger of untrained, immigrant drivers who are pressed into working for shady trucking operators as they attempt to gain Canadian permanent residence. Mahan Singh remembers feeling terrified he would lose control on an icy highway and kill someone. His new employer had sent the 26-year-old rookie driver out to navigate a semi-trailer through treacherous mountain [...]
TOP TIPS FOR SUSTAINABLE BUSINESSES
Think bigger, think smaller or think outside the box - top tips for a sustainable business. When chief executives from many of Canada’s fastest growing businesses gathered Oct. 8 for The Globe and Mail Growth Camp, they shared their insights to help others build a sustainable business. Here are the top five pieces of advice and how they applied during the development of some of Canada’s most successful [...]
OPEN IMMIGRATION BOOSTS CANADIAN ECONOMY
Canada's open immigration policy results in a culturally diverse workforce. Why did grunge music emerge in Seattle? Business strategists and development economists may have an answer that can at least partly explain why, and it relates to something called regional competitive advantage. Regional competitive advantage is the “secret sauce” that enables regions and industry clusters to compete on a global scale. The same concept can be used to [...]
FINANCING SOLUTION FROM iBC SPURS FAST SALE
Demand for Canada Scooters' core product, mobility scooters, is high on Vancouver Island. Justin Reynolds still has high hopes for the successful expansion of the business he recently sold. “It’s an excellent little business and I think there is a great opportunity to grow this business to the next level,” he said August 13, almost two months after selling Canada Scooter on June 19. The business included two [...]
WORK PERMIT CHANGES EYED FOR MIGRANT WORKERS
Harvesting the crop, a job that is sometimes done by temporary migrant workers in Canada. (Stock Photo) Canada's federal government says it would like to give migrant workers more mobility and freedom by allowing them to work for any Canadian business approved to hire temporary foreign workers, within a specific sector such as agriculture, instead of being tied to just one employer. The sector-specific open work permits would [...]
DECADE AFTER iBC PURCHASE, PUBLISHER IS THRIVING
Judy Stephan is thriving as publisher of Nanaimo Magazine and Voyager Magazine, a decade after buying the business through iBC Business Broker. A decade after buying Nanaimo & Voyager Magazine Inc. and re-inventing herself as a writer and publisher, Judy Stephan is thriving. It started in 2009 when Judy, a recent immigrant from South Africa, sought out business broker Michael Naprawa. In South Africa, she had worked as [...]
SOLD! WOLF BREWING FANS BECOME OWNERS
When Rob Regner moved to Nanaimo with his wife Jody 18 months ago, the first local product he put in his Kegerator was from Nanaimo’s Wolf Brewing Company. Once the couple discovered the Victoria Road craft brewery, Rob quickly became a fan. Now, he’s an owner. The Regners and long-time friends Darcy Stephenson and Tim Lotzien took possession of the brewery February 1. “It had everything in place,” Regner said. [...]
CUT PAPER TRAIL TO STAY SECURE
When an email from a senior executive directs employees working in accounting or finance to make wire transfers, payments, or purchases – it pays to ensure that the request is legitimate and not a so-called “CEO scam.” Targeting small businesses and large corporations alike, the scam involves fraudsters impersonating a senior company executive and sending urgent, confidential – and often realistic-looking – messages designed to trick employees into wiring money [...]
GENDER BALANCE IN FIVE YEARS
By HARVEY SCHACHTER – Special to the Globe and Mail In five years, BTS USA achieved 50-per-cent female representation–and it all started with a willingness to change. Five years ago, the female consultants at BTS USA were a woeful 16 per cent of its total team, despite the fact that North American business schools were churning out talented female graduates aiming for that field. Even clients of the strategy and [...]
FAMILY SUCCESSION DRAMAS ARE A FAMILIAR STORY
Belinda Stronach isn’t the first Canadian business scion who has had trouble escaping her father’s shadow. When Frank Stronach, the 86-year-old founder of auto-parts giant Magna International Inc., filed suit against his daughter in October 2018, alleging that she mismanaged his fortune, he made a point of letting her know that in his eyes, she would never measure up. Painting himself as a “corporate visionary,” Mr. Stronach characterized his eldest [...]
RISING WAGES PUSH OWNERS TO COVER MORE SHIFTS
Business owners unable to afford wage increases are now taking on more work shifts themselves to keep their businesses operating. A combination of mandatory minimum wage increases in B.C., Alberta, and Ontario and increasing lease rates for space are hampering the ability of smaller businesses to grow to the next stage.Instead of planning and building for the future, business owners are back on the floor serving customers. Unable to cover [...]
CANADIAN CAMPUSES INCUBATE BUSINESS SUCCESS
What will the jobs of the future look like? What skills are needed? And how does Canada compete in the digital world? Ensuring the country can successfully answer these questions will preserve Canada’s future businesses, future jobs, and economic prosperity. To prepare for this technology-driven future, Canada’s universities and colleges are encouraging student entrepreneurs across the country. In an October 12 Globe and Mail article, researchers Alejandro Adem and Victoria [...]
EATING TOGETHER BUILDS BONDS AMONG TEAMS
How many times did you eat your lunch alone this week? According to a recent survey, while 68 per cent of working Canadians enjoy eating lunch with their colleagues, two-thirds of us eat lunch alone at least three times during the workweek. Even worse, almost half (42 per cent) of working Canadians eat lunch alone every workday. But it wasn’t always this way. Eating alone is not a natural human [...]
Civil Suit: Business Sellers Failed to Honour Sale Terms
A Nanaimo accounting firm that purchased a Lantzville business filed a civil suit in the Supreme Court of B.C., alleging that the sellers breached a non-competition agreement. The suit also alleges the sellers did not provide the documentation and intellectual property required as part of the sale. The accounting business, Barber and Haime Inc., was sold to B. Rushton Inc. for $727,000 in August 2017. Sale terms included a six-year non-competition [...]
Task Force Launched for Small Business
The B.C. government is launching a task force aimed at helping small businesses. They want to hear from entrepreneurs so they are holding consultations throughout the province for all types of businesses. It applies to rural and remote communities as well and especially First Nations. Innovation, the emerging economy, youth employment, succession planning, risk aversion, businesses costs and more will be discussed at the task force starting in June. An [...]
Artificial Intelligence for Customer Service
Artificial Intelligence is the next wave of the future in customer service. A step up from 1-800 numbers and email, AI can do some wonderful things and many companies have already used its potential. Instead of fixing a problem, AI technology can now predict a looming problem and fix it before it occurs. This can be applied to industries such as airlines and big box retailers. AI can identify missing [...]
Business Owners Are Looking to Fill Jobs
Business owners are looking to fill positions as Canada’s economy improves and minimum wage increases are established. Some jobs are going vacant and employers are having to increase wages to attract the workforce. Average hourly wages grew 3.3 per cent year over year in January, the strongest growth yet according to Statistics Canada’s monthly Labourforce survey. The country’s unemployment rate sank to 10 year lows and StatsCanada’s monthly payroll survey [...]
Need for Cyberresilience Increases Among Private & Public Sector
The need for cyberresilience is becoming more important among organizations which are under increased risk from cyberattacks, cyberbreaches and cybercrime. Public and private sector leaders need to give greater attention to safeguarding customer trust to provide increasingly personalized products and services in addition to flexible, interconnected supply chains. The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, has identified three priorities for building cyberresilience for a stronger organization. To read more, see Cyberresilience.
Catch the Signs of Micromanaging and Stop
Catch the signs of a micromanaging and stop before it’s too late! Micromanagers are wearisome, controlling and demoralizing to employees. Controlling bosses are the master of details, consistently ask for frequent updates, want to be cc’d on everything and love to rewrite and edit someone else’s work. It’s all done in the name of good management, but over time it erodes employee morale. Controlling bosses get lost in the minutae [...]
Young People Unprepared for Technological Skills Revolution
Educating young people for jobs requiring technology is not keeping pace with the explosion of skills required. Canada is on the brink of a skills revolution with fully half of jobs requiring new skills and another quarter heavily disrupted by technology according to RBC Economics. But young people aren’t being properly educated to embrace that change. The advisory council on economic growth predicts the economy is heading for ‘unprecedented change.’ [...]
5 Mistakes Every Entrepreneur Should Make
Entrepreneurs always hear about mistakes to avoid but what about the mistakes they should make? The founder of 1-800-Got-Junk says there are 5 entrepreneur mistakes every business owner should make.Brian Scudamore says these mistakes are part of the entrepreneurial journey and should be embraced as the best learning experiences for entrepreneur mistakes. These mistakes include; using money as a motivator, hiring the wrong people, trying to control everything, trying to [...]
Globe and Mail gives B.C. News a Prominent Place
Canada’s national newspaper has re-committed itself to giving B.C. news a prominent place amid the rest of the award winning journalism. That place, in the A section, means the Globe’s commitment to coverage in the West is long standing. Amidst news of the fentanyl crisis, real estate prices, the spreading impact of marijuana legalization and Indigenous constitutional rights, readers will have an insight into how provincial issues impact and affect [...]
Will U.S. Inflation Affect Canada’s Economy?
U.S. inflation caused the economy to grow by 3.3% over the summer – it’s third fastest pace since the third quarter of 2014. The growth rate is slightly exaggerated by inventories of goods yet to be sold, which contributed 0.8 per cent to the third-quarter Gross Domestic Product, GDP, growth which is up from the .73 percentage points previously reported. Compared to the U.S., Canada’s economic growth was weaker, coming [...]
Does Open Banking Benefit Your Business?
Banking is moving to a new ‘uber’ type method that allows bank data to be shared yet still protect consumers personal information against growing cyber-attacks. Major investments are being planned in open banking by 2020. This would grant third parties, such as financial technology startups, access to bank data to develop apps. Open banking would allow consumers to access data to see all their financial accounts and move funds in [...]
What to Do If Your Company Gets Hacked
Your company’s website has just been hacked. What to you do? Despite online security measures, a recent IBM study says 1 in 4 organizations will experience some form of cyber penetration in the next decade. Cyber hacking is expensive and can result in extensive downtime. There’s a growing risk to becoming a victim that businesses can’t ignore. That’s why a business needs to have a plan to prevent hacking and [...]
Beware-Ransomware Virus Passed On
BC Business Broker was recently affected by a ransomware virus passed on from a trusted client. The client had 6 email addresses compromised by this virus. The criminal ransomware organization sent ‘authentic’ looking emails to their database using a valid email address and signature. Emails sent through BC Business Broker and Sunbelt Network were compromised during the attack. The situation has since been resolved. This post is a warning for [...]
Bankers Question Inflation Practices in Global Economy
Monetary planners are questioning whether the age old practice of raising inflation rates to balance out the economy is still working. Central bankers are operating in a baffling new world that is the reverse of what their predecessors dealt with in the 1970s and 1980s. Instead of struggling to bring inflation down or keep it under control, they now struggle to see the rates go up. Wage increases used to [...]
Central Bank Wrestles with Inflation Challenge
Congratulations, Jerome Powell. This week you have been handed one of the toughest and most important jobs on the planet. As the new chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, you will have to pilot the world’s most powerful central bank as it attempts to restore normalcy to a global economy still bearing scars from the financial crisis of a decade ago. To make your task even more difficult, you will [...]
Canadian family business penalized by tax proposals
Under the new government tax proposal launched July 18, 2017, Canadian families looking to sell the family business to their children will be heavily taxed. Selling to an outsider would allow the normal capital gains tax exemption, but selling to their children would not allow the parent to utilize the existing capital gains tax exemption. The capital gains exemption to reduce the tax amount is also being disallowed. Often, when [...]
Expert Advice When Sales Grow but Profits Don’t
What’s an aspiring entrepreneur do when a business is growing but the profits aren’t? Get expert advice. Expert advice can help entrepreneurs like Sarah Landstreet, whose company Georgette Packaging grew to $1.3 million in sales this past August from $172,000 in 2014. Despite that growth, her net profits for this year were $84,000 as of August. Brian Brennan, a senior partner at Toronto-based Max Potential, suggests three strategic ways that [...]
Canadian dollar shoots up almost a cent
"The Canadian dollar jumped more than a full cent higher against the U.S. greenback Friday after a weaker-than-expected U.S. jobs report. According to Bloomberg, the loonie hit an intraday high of 77.43 cents US shortly after the release of employment figures that showed U.S. job creation in April hit its lowest mark in more than five years. The loonie eventually finished the day with a gain of 0.95, putting it at 77.26 cents US." [...]
Avis Budget buys Zipcar for $491M
"Avis is leaping into the car-sharing service business by buying Zipcar for $491.2 million, aiming to capture a new type of customer and technology that will vastly expand its car rental options. Car sharing has become a popular alternative to traditional rentals in metropolitan areas and on college campuses, allowing members to get a vehicle for an hour or two for short trips instead of renting a car for a [...]
Technology ‘Golden era’ coming_Amazon’s Jeff Bezos
"Amazon founder Jeff Bezos says when it comes to technology, "We're on the edge of the golden era." Bezos offered a glimpse of his vision of the future during an interview Tuesday at the Code Conference in Southern California. Of artificial intelligence, Bezos says, "It's probably hard to overstate how big of an impact it's going to have on society over the next 20 years." Bezos says Amazon has 1,000 people [...]
Dual-income parents doubled in Canada
"The percentage of dual income families in Canada has almost doubled in the past 40 years, according to research released Monday by Statistics Canada. Between 1976 and 2015, the percentage of dual-income families with at least one child went from 36 per cent to 69 per cent. Over the same period, the proportion of families where just one parent earned a paycheque dropped from 59 per cent to 27 per cent." [...]
New platforms easier for investors to get data
“When worried investors ask the management of a privately held company how it’s doing financially, there’s often a scramble to provide them even the most rudimentary information. ‘We call it ‘interns and Excel’ – people will get on the phone and say, ‘I haven’t heard from you in three quarters,’ and they’ll send them a PDF or a Google spreadsheet,” said Raymond Luk, founder and chief executive officer of Hockeystick.co, [...]
1.7 million Canadians work from home
"Like many Canadians, Carla Holub has gladly given up commuting for the ease and comfort of working from home. The 41-year-old WestJet sales agent says she has no regrets since she made the change three years ago to work from home. Telecommuting affords her the time to take her children to dance lessons and hockey while reducing her lunch, coffee, gas and car insurance costs, she says." As the world [...]
Beer business shares sold by Beau’s Brewery
East-Coast based Beau's Brewery has announced that they will begin to sell their beer business; though the sale is not taking place in the most traditional way. Rather than sell out-right the beer business is selling in shared, to the 150 employees of the brewery. "The plan is expected to take years to implement, but will see a portion of the company's privately held shares transferred to participating employees every [...]
Deadline looms for businesses planning to sell
There is a feature in the new federal budget that has private business owners making the decision to sell their business. According to the budget, private businesses will pay more taxes on the sale of their business starting January 1st, 2017. According to The Globe and Mail, "tax experts say the move, which was intended to simplify the tax system, is inspiring some business owners readying for a sale to [...]
Canada’s job growth in Toronto & Vancouver
According to CBC News, Toronto and Vancouver have accounted for the entirety of job growth in Canada. Which means, as BMO's chief economist puts it, "That means the rest of the country has created precisely no new jobs in the past year". This is all the more unusual because, according to the same economist, those two cities account for 25% of Canada's total employment. Perhaps this is an indication that job [...]
A new look for BCBusinessBrokers.ca.
As you can likely tell, things look a little bit different here at BCBusinessBroker.ca. This is thanks to the hard work from PrimalCommunications.com who have brought our website up to match the standard of website that you would expect from your business broker. This new site is easier to navigate, and will be updated frequently with new listings, and news to keep you well informed. Among the changes is our [...]
Job seekers create their own jobs
Financial pundits confirm what BC Business Brokers is seeing in practice: the current decline in unemployment rates is partly a result of job seekers deciding to make their own jobs by purchasing an existing business. They are combining skills and experience gained in the workforce with savings and severance funds to invest in a solid future. Sunbelt BC Business Brokers (West Coast)'s Michael Naprawa particularly enjoys helping these clients find [...]
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