Transcript

(Being Edited)

Speaker1: [00:00:00] And listen, you know, again, congratulations and all that you were able to accomplish. I saw that it wasn’t something that was a walk in the park. It wasn’t easy. And but but listen, you did it. Congratulations. And hey, if if anyone wants to reach out to you for investor inquiries or something similar, where should they go? Yeah. We managed to fly down and just take a look at what you have going on here. And you just wanted to take the time to just walk through exactly what really is your story. And so I guess that’s going to lead book the first question. Everyone has a story. So what’s your story?

Speaker2: [00:00:43] Oof, I don’t know exactly how to answer that, but in terms of finance and investing, I just love realize it. I love defensible industries, right? Things that as human beings we can do it all. Talk about shelter, you talk about power, you talk about health care. We can look at COVID.

Speaker3: [00:01:05] We all stay at home.

Speaker2: [00:01:06] Yeah, but we survived because we got shelter. Good stuff. Because we got health care. We survived because we got power. So those industries I love those. I’ve been in those industries for the past 12 years plus now, you know. So I’ve been doing that before I moved to Canada in 2018. Since then, I’m just focusing on building my platform, my brand.

Speaker1: [00:01:30] Got it. Yeah. Yeah. And so with building and with these almost blue blue chip type of stable investments and stable, stable type of assets, why, why are you so interested in them and why is it something that you like? Is it the security or what is it?

Speaker3: [00:01:45] Well, you can say security, but at the same time, the focus is about capital preservation.

Speaker1: [00:01:51] Yeah.

Speaker2: [00:01:52] I don’t like shiny objects.

Speaker3: [00:01:54] Yeah, it’s about preservation.

Speaker2: [00:01:56] Of the capital and I can actually get.

Speaker3: [00:01:58] Sustainable returns. Yeah, that’s predictable. So if you look at real estate, for instance.

Speaker2: [00:02:03] Especially in a multifamily asset.

Speaker3: [00:02:05] That is predictable even with one year lease, but you can plan with that. If you look at power, for instance, if you have a power generating asset, you sign a.

Speaker2: [00:02:15] Ppa with that spark.

Speaker3: [00:02:17] Which is agreement. Yes.

Speaker2: [00:02:19] Maybe for instance, let’s say DC Hydro or Hydro One, that’s going to.

Speaker3: [00:02:23] Be for like three years, five years. And those kind of agreement is indexed against inflation. So you can actually plan on the cash flow from that. The cash flow is not.

Speaker2: [00:02:35] As robust as what you find in some people in venture capital where they make 30% on all of that. But the thing with defensible industry is that it is predictable. You can plan with that cash flow. It’s not as high, but you can go to bed and sleep properly. You don’t have to worry so much about what’s going to happen to you. You know, it’s not stock market where you lose your money overnight.

Speaker1: [00:02:59] Yeah, it’s not it’s not up and down like a roller coaster.

Speaker2: [00:03:02] So volatility. So I try not to use volatility, but volatility is not there. You know, the the swings are not there. You can’t plan with that. It’s predictable. The cash flow is not as I mean, the returns are crazy, but you can plan those. So that’s why I love Loss Industries.

Speaker1: [00:03:20] Got it. And I remember, you know, going back to even 2019, but around 2020, 2021, something maybe a bit unpredictable happen. So you manage to actually come across what was raised as an outcome. So what were you up to specifically? Right before we were able to meet.

Speaker3: [00:03:37] You know.

Speaker2: [00:03:39] The industry looking for assets and I’ve been talking to, I mean, some veterans in the industry, but I was looking for.

Speaker3: [00:03:50] A platform.

Speaker2: [00:03:51] Or individuals that I can bounce my ideas off, you know, not just, you know, attempts when you’re working on a deal or working on something, you took close to it to realize that there might be mistake here on our times when you’re working with an advisor or you somebody close to you, apart from your team because your team are so engrossed in it, they’ve been looking at it. I mean, certain things. Yeah. So when I came across.

Speaker3: [00:04:17] Through a friend, I came across the platform.

Speaker2: [00:04:24] So and I connected with you guys and since then it’s been, it’s been awesome experience for me because every time we go on the call, every, every, every Monday on Wednesdays, I usually attend the Monday ones. And you guys have always been there to just support and give your feedback. What do you think is missing? What do you think we should do or we should not do? And I think that helped us to get to where we got to in the three weeks ago.

Speaker1: [00:04:54] Got it. Yeah. And about three weeks ago. What is it that happened three weeks ago.

Speaker2: [00:04:58] Where.

Speaker1: [00:04:59] You were.

Speaker2: [00:05:01] Able to close out 44, 44 units in Edmonton, multifamily asset in Edmonton. That was a rough was a rough experience, I’ll tell you that. We had, you know, ups and downs. There’s some disappointment around that. But we were able to close. I think that’s what really matters. I don’t want to go into the nitty gritty, but one thing I would advise anyone that. Trying to raise money, especially in the real estate space. And you don’t have your investors lined up already. Even if they are lined up, get some commitment from them. And what I’m saying, commitment and commitment that the money is in the bank, whether it’s 10% or 20%, let it be in the bank. If you’ve had some relationship or done some deals with them.

Speaker3: [00:05:46] Before.

Speaker2: [00:05:46] Yeah, you might not worry about that because you know that they’re going to come through. But somebody you’ve never done anything with before. Get some commitment, you know? So you didn’t know that by the time you come asking for the balance that if they don’t deploy it, they’re going to do the attempt to send to 20%. Yeah. And in most cases try to if you’re trying to raise 1 million target to raise 1.5 or 1.8 million. So we have two or three investors drop out, as at least you say, able to cover the amount you’re trying to raise. Yeah, which was the problem we ran into. You know, we had two investors just for a large amount of money, which I don’t want to start talking about right now. And we had a huge hole to fill within a very short period of time. But now we’re able to close on the 17th of March.

Speaker1: [00:06:39] And you’re able to do it a bit unpredictably, but you did it.

Speaker3: [00:06:42] So, yeah, it seemed.

Speaker2: [00:06:44] Unachievable what we did.

Speaker1: [00:06:46] Congratulations. Thank you. Okay, so now now that this deal is done, what’s next? After you got the first one done, what’s next for you here?

Speaker2: [00:06:57] I think the immediate next step for us is repositioning the property. We are now rushing to the next big deal. First, we want to get the property to what we promised our investors first.

Speaker1: [00:07:11] Yeah.

Speaker2: [00:07:11] So that might take two months, 2 to 3 months to get that point. But at the same time, we have deals being thrown at us, especially because of the news that we just closed this one. So we have deals being tried out. So okay, we have this here, but we are taking our time. We are not rushing to get into any new deal right now. Maybe about three months, four months. We are actively in the market at that point. Right now we’re just focusing on repositioning this asset, you know, not just for the forced acquisition, but we’re looking at the natural position because of the market where this investment is and that’s in Edmonton.

Speaker1: [00:07:49] Got it. Yeah. And that has it which we we see this asset all over some of the press releases. So you know, when it came to down it, back when it came to, you know, you making this step, what was it that made you overcome any hesitation to join raises outcome.

Speaker3: [00:08:09] I once I observe once I, I mean I got to know about you guys first. I mean.

Speaker2: [00:08:19] I would the way I spoke about you, I’m not saying this for the camera but said you just have to talk to this guy. You have to talk to this asset.

Speaker3: [00:08:28] We didn’t know you’ve not spoken to him. You need to talk to this guy. This guy’s good. So I thought, okay, that was fine. So. And the rapport.

Speaker2: [00:08:36] The conversation, we had one on one. And I like the rapport, I love the chemistry. I think I need to get in better with these guys. I need to know what you’re doing. I want to be part of what you guys are doing. And I’ve not regretted signing up.

Speaker1: [00:08:48] Got it. And for those, you know, in many different, you know, maybe some people have already closed their deals. Maybe they have. It’s for somebody who sees raises that come and they may have some hesitation. What would you say to them if they were to take that next step?

Speaker3: [00:09:02] Was was keeping was the hesitation about this just jumping the you have to think I had something and as somebody said, the return on awesome. You know you just in the market bind you and binding you and why not get because resource companies don’t.

Speaker2: [00:09:21] Just about people that are just starting out you’ve got veterans that are part of the business dot com so they give the advice to tell you this what they’ve done and this how they’ve been successful at it. So there’s nothing you have.

Speaker3: [00:09:35] Nothing to lose but. You don’t have anything to lose. That’s what I’m saying. You have everything to gain by being part of this dot com. Because for me, I’ve seen it and I’ll testify and I’ll tell anybody if you want to get a.

Speaker2: [00:09:48] Deal, cause you’re.

Speaker3: [00:09:50] Looking and.

Speaker2: [00:09:52] Cheaply, you know, you want to get your deal closed cheaply. You can just go to Reddit dot com. There are so many things that the investment bankers will charge you that if you go to red dot com you might get it for free or aren’t talking good.

Speaker1: [00:10:09] Got it. And listen, you know, again, congratulations and all that you were able to accomplish. I saw that it wasn’t something that was a walk in the park. It wasn’t easy. And but but listen, you did it. Congratulations. And hey, if if anyone wants to reach out to you for investor inquiries or something similar. Where should they go?

Speaker3: [00:10:29] I’m very active on LinkedIn.

Speaker2: [00:10:32] You can go to our website. It should be active by next week. We have to take it down for certain reasons, but we’re active in next week. But I’m very active on LinkedIn. You can just check out Ascend Capital on LinkedIn or check out my own profile, LinkedIn as well. I do allow let me just type it out. You find it. I guess you can just Google my name. Perfect it just go my name. I’m sure I’m going to focus on my other.

Speaker1: [00:10:58] Yeah. And even, you know you’ve done it well. Congratulations again. Thank you. And we look forward. Hey, no worries. And we look forward to seeing you get some more done and yes, absolutely. Give these returns here.

Speaker2: [00:11:07] Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much, Nathan.