Canadian Tech Out of Touch With Global Entrepreneur Ecosystem

Canadian Tech Industry Still Not Confronting Its Infrastructure Issues

This is yet another excellent article questioning the Canadian tech industry’s appreciation of its significant deficiencies and challenges. It reflects my own view after much research and many interviews. It is also the view of UoT Professor Richard Florida who published a similar article in the Globe & Mail recently. Venture capital is anemic, but many also believe that there is a lack of scale-up management talent. Another factor is deeply-embedded Canadian conservatism, as evidenced by the bizarre entry of high street commercial banks’ debt offerings to entrepreneurs.

Source: Canadian tech needs to redefine its sense of scale

CANADIAN TECH NEEDS TO REDEFINE ITS SENSE OF SCALE/BetaKit

If like me, you spend a lot of time poring over the latest in Canadian tech, chances are good that you see both the huge potential of our technology companies and the simultaneous challenge: too often, they’re being held back by Canada’s scale-up deficit.

This, of course, isn’t news. In all the years I’ve participated in this sector, it’s been an ongoing challenge—one that has been the topic of countless discussions, panels, and debates. It’s an issue that has long challenged our innovation and technology sectors, and though it’s been talked about at length, it’s a conversation that deserves our full attention until we get it right.

Canada has become a launch-pad for early-stage companies, but, with a few notable exceptions, we are largely still lacking later-stage success stories.

PwC Canada’s recent MoneyTree report shows that our technology sector has seen a significant increase in funding deal volume in the last year—up 30 percent from 2017. But when one reads between the lines, it’s also clear that our homegrown tech companies are still largely stuck in a middle ground. In fact, of all the companies raising seed or early-stage funding during 2015-2017, only roughly 10 percent of them raised expansion or later-stage funding during 2016-2018.

Even if we leave room for successful shops that don’t need to raise further VC, that still doesn’t account for all of it. Many stall, naturally. They don’t continue to climb the curve and thereby miss the opportunity to hit scale. Of course, some companies shouldn’t scale and falter for good reasons. But many should and, for one reason or another, don’t. As a result, it seems that Canada has become a launch-pad for early-stage companies, but, with a few notable exceptions, we are largely still lacking the later-stage success stories we see in many other ecosystems.

Addressing this begins with challenging our very definition of scale. When we talk about Canada’s scale-up dilemma, we tend to focus on the obvious: raising capital, multiplying sales, and increasing market share in large, global, addressable markets. All of this is important but, in my experience, it’s only a part of the equation. Whether founders are on their first venture or their fifth, early-stage companies face many challenges to growth, and mature technology ecosystems support them by ensuring they see the bigger picture, beyond raising capital and increasing sales. It’s time to redefine our collective understanding of what scale means, and arrive at a new recipe that touches on all the moving parts companies need to master if they’re going to level-up.

To redefine scale, we need to take a closer look at the state of our ecosystems, which can become global hubs for highly skilled digital, creative, and leadership talent, and at the roadblocks that are currently preventing companies from scaling up. Let’s start by looking to the key stakeholders who will inevitably play an important role in shaping the future of the tech sector, including our government, VCs, and the public and private sector buyers of technology.

Government, of course, has several levers to pull when it comes to helping companies scale, like shaping policies and regulations that work to benefit our technology sector, while ensuring tax dollars are well spent through targeted incentive programs matched with data and IP policies that achieve the right balance.

Government(s) of all levels need to re-commit to working with Canadian technology companies at all stages of their evolution. They need to commit to procurement policies and practices that produce a real and predictable market for our tech companies to address and sell into. Federal and provincial governments of all stripes have made promises in this regard, but the velocity of, and commitment to, local sourcing hasn’t yet translated for our entrepreneurs.

Our government can also work to modernize our federal and provincial processes that foster the development and retention of IP, and continue to evolve tax incentives that support later-stage companies. These improvements would also encourage greater global investment in the Canadian ecosystem. According to the World Economic Forum Executive Opinion Survey, two of the most problematic factors of doing business in Canada are inefficient government bureaucracy and tax rates.

Data regulations and privacy policies, too, are of particular focus for governments worldwide. Ours can help us ensure that Canadian technology shops want to stay here, to do their important work, while being intentional about our data protection policies. After all, scaling does not mean scaling by any means, and protecting our data sovereignty is important.

Beyond government support, we should also look to VCs and other sources of private capital to enable companies to scale. Here, we often turn to Silicon Valley for inspiration, as investors there tend to be more willing to place big bets and write big cheques. Canada can learn from this. Any investor is going to have more misses than hits and, without higher risk tolerance, we won’t be able to finance the technological sophistication that will propel us to the next level.

According to the 2019 Canadian Startup Outlook Report, 56 percent of companies state that their long-term goal is to be acquired.

There is good news for Canada: CPPIB recently announced investments of $1 billion in venture funds, much of which will focus on technology companies. I’d love to see our wider investment community follow their lead. Funds like Novacap, Georgian Partners, OMERS Ventures, and more occupy the unique position of helping shape the future of Canada’s innovation economy. They’re already investing in some great home-grown companies, and their continued willingness to take bigger risks on innovative, growth-stage companies will help create the culture we need.

There’s even more good news when it comes to talent in Canada: we’re well positioned to become a hub for top tech and innovation talent. Our immigration policies, like BC’s Provincial Nominee Program and the federal Global Skills Strategy, are helping to draw the global talent stream north; our colleges, universities, and research hubs are world-renowned. Still, as I’ve seen with the corporate boards and senior leadership teams I’ve been involved with, companies need seasoned global talent if they want to become truly global players. It’s time we cast a wider net, finding ways to incentivize governance and executive talent from technology hubs like Boston, New York, Shenzhen, Dublin, Tel Aviv, and beyond to help Canadian companies reach their next stage and deliver on the promise of scale.

Established Canadian corporates have a big role to play here too. While our market is small by comparison to our neighbour, there is big buying power in our financial services, energy, retail, healthcare, automotive, and other major industries. Without a hint of protectionism, we can look to the Canadian innovation and technology markets each and every time we are procuring a solution, looking for new technologies or even looking for a problem to solve. In fact, according to the 2019 PwC annual CEO survey, 52 percent of Canadian CEOs surveyed see collaboration with start-up entrepreneurs as a key growth strategy.

Another way for companies to level-up and scale quickly is to reconsider some elements of the growth strategy playbook. Not surprisingly, according to the 2019 Canadian Startup Outlook Report by Silicon Valley Bank, 56 percent of companies state that their long-term goal is to be acquired. However, we should consider a shift in mindset that focuses on growth by acquisition rather than looking primarily at exit strategies or organic growth. This approach works well in dynamic sectors like fintech and healthcare. I’ve seen companies enjoy success by expanding into international markets or adjacent spaces, growing horizontally through acquisitions. Our tech leaders need to be thinking long-term so that, whether they’re building to grow, to expand, or to sell, they have the right structures and systems in place.

I am hopeful that these thoughts are provocative and assist some in considering strategies and actions that will lead to the scale Canada needs. True scale is critical if we want our technology companies to drive our GDP, provide high-paying jobs, and spur the innovations that will elevate us on the world stage.

This article was originally published on LinkedIn. Photo courtesy @dingle.

Could Macron and Brexit make France Europe’s tech capital? 🇫🇷

Source: Could Macron and Brexit make Paris Europe’s tech capital?

FRANCE 24

Date created : 13/04/2019 – 18:14Latest update : 15/04/2019 – 08:23

Ludovic Marin/AFP | French President Emmanuel Macron speaks as he visits the start-up campus Station F on October 9, 2018.

This article’s original headline and content focused only on a very large, high profile startup incubator in Paris, but frankly, there is a lot more going on in other parts of France as well.

Text by:Charlotte WILKINS

Shortly after his election in May 2017, President Macron said he wanted France itself “to think and move like a start-up” – a vision of the country’s digital future that is gaining traction as Britain wrestles with Brexit.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s vow to make France a ‘start-up nation’ amid the uncertainty over Brexitis raising the question of whether Paris could supplant London as the capital of European tech.

Since his election, Macron has wooed tech entrepreneurs with a string of initiatives in the form of lavish tax breaks, subsidies, and credits for research. In March 2018, he promised to invest €1.5 billion into artificial intelligence research through 2022.

Some of these initiatives, in addition to Macron’s dynamism, have lured British tech companies who are looking to gain a foothold in Europe.

“It made sense to have a European base,” said Cedric Jones*, a Briton who recently launched a start-up at Station F, the cavernous old train station that is now home to the world’s largest start-up campus. “If I’m going to make waves in continental Europe… I wanted to get here before Brexit happened.”

Jones is among dozens of foreign entrepreneurs who have recently launched their start-up at Station F, whose 3,000 desk hub has seen spiraling applications from English-speaking nationals in the last two years.

Some cite political woes back home, the burgeoning French tech sector, or are inspired by Macron’s bid to make Paris the innovation heart of Europe.

“There’s an air of optimism and a can-do spirit in France that I feel we’ve lost somewhat in the US,” said Mark Heath, a New Yorker, who stayed on in France to launch a start-up after studying at INSEAD in 2017.

The Macron effect

Much of the investment in French tech predates Macron’s reforms. The state investment bank Bpifrance, launched by former French president François Hollande in 2013, has been widely credited with developing the sector. Hollande also set up new foreign visas for start-up entrepreneurs.

But Zahir Bouchaary, a Briton who works out of Station F, credits Macron with injecting dynamism into the sector.

“Macron has installed a [start-up] mentality within the French ecosystem itself,” said Bouchaary, adding that it has become much easier to do business in France in the last few years.

“French customers are a lot more willing to work with start-ups than they were before,” said Bouchaary. “France was a very conservative country and our clients were used to working with big old-fashioned companies that have been around for a while. For the past few years, they’ve opened up a lot more to working with younger companies and seem to take more risks than they did before.”

Jones agreed that Macron was “the single variable”. “When he [Macron] goes, the dynamism will go too. I absolutely would not expect that to remain the case if he’s not the president.”

However, although Macron has moved to ease labour laws, Jones said that navigating the country’s labyrinthine bureaucracy in French remained “very burdensome”, and that it was far easier to build a business in the UK. “Whether it’s from a tax perspective or from a legal perspective it’s just so much more complicated.”

UK tech ‘resilient’

The tech scene in London appears to be just as vibrant as ever, explained Albin Serviant, president of Frenchtech in London, who said many UK-based tech entrepreneurs are adopting a “wait and see” approach to Brexit.

“The UK ecosystem is quite resilient,” said Serviant.

“In the first quarter of 2019, there were about €2 billion invested in tech in London. That’s compared to 1.5 billion last year, which is plus 30 percent. And that’s twice as much as France – which invested 1 billion. France is catching up very fast but the investment money is still flowing in the UK,” he added.

Serviant cited London’s business-friendly ecosystem and international talent pool as reasons for why London remains the capital of the European tech sector. Barcelona and Berlin are also contenders for the UK’s tech start-up crown.

Nonetheless, Serviant cautioned against the effects that a hard Brexit would have on the tech sector in the UK.

“‘If Brexit happens in a bad way and if people like me and other entrepreneurs have to leave, obviously that’s very bad for the UK because what makes it very different is the international DNA of London.”

Hard Brexit would not just damage the UK tech sector but would also pose challenges for British developers, who post-Brexit may need a carte de séjour to work in the country, looking to find work in France.

Sarah Pedroza, co-managing director of Hello Tomorrow technologies, a Paris-based startup NGO, said that if she had to choose between hiring a British national and an EU citizen with the same skillset, she would opt for an EU citizen because there would be less paperwork involved.

Brexit aside, others suggest that France is snapping at the UK’s technological heels.

“I do think France has the potential under Macron to close the gap with the UK,” said Jones.

“The single biggest factor in what’s going on for France is that France is developing a sense of confidence in itself, in its start-up scene, as a tech hub, that’s being helped by France and that’s also being helped by Brexit.”

Are These Canadian Banks Simply Offering Dumb Entrepreneurial Venture Debt?

Canada’s Entrepreneurial Finance Industry Is Living In A Bubble

Bank ‘slugfest’ leaves the Canadian tech sector piled high with cheap debt offers

Canadian Entrepreneurs Are Being Exploited By The Banking Elite While VC’s Struggle To Raise Capital

In one of the more bizarre recent articles on the state of the Canadian venture investment market, The Globe & Mail offered this story of the entry of Canadian commercial banks like CIBC, RBC and TD into the world of entrepreneurial finance. Not more than a few weeks ago, Toronto University Professor Richard Florida also published an opinion piece in The Globe & Mail, in sharp contrast which is entitled “Canada is losing the global innovation race”, describing the long term decline of Canadian venture capital and decades of poor investment in basic R&D compared to its other OECD industrialized nations.  Recently, a colleague in Canadian venture capital told me of his retirement, citing the enormous difficulty his firm had raising capital from the Canadian financial industry. This is prima facie evidence of how disconnected Canada is from the reality of entrepreneurial finance and venture capital. The Canadian financial industry mindset is Problem One. Name another major entrepreneurial ecosystem that operates like this.

JOSH O’KANETECHNOLOGY REPORTER

PUBLISHED JANUARY 6, 2019 UPDATED JANUARY 6, 2019

Source: Bank ‘slugfest’ leaves Canadian tech sector piled high with cheap debt offers – The Globe and Mail

Banks spent 2018 fighting to give Canada’s fast-growing tech sector something it hasn’t had much taste for in years: debt.

Canadian scale-ups and venture-capital-firm partners spent much of the past year watching offers for debt financing pile higher than they can ever remember. In interviews with The Globe and Mail, founders, partners, and lenders used phrases like “slugfest” and “arms race” to describe the phenomenon. Both Canadian and American banks are racing to serve young tech companies, by improving loan terms and shoving down rates. This has reshaped how Canadian tech startups secure financing: Debt is so cheap that some small companies that would have never considered it are taking it on as a cushion, giving them extra runway between equity raises without diluting founders’ ownership.

The trend is partly a reflection of Canada’s tech sector’s coming-of-age after its post-financial-crisis doldrums. But it’s also the result of deliberate moves by two major players – one established in debt financing, the other making its return.

California’s Silicon Valley Bank is taking steps to formalize its ability to lend to Canadian clients and hopes to be fully licensed here early next year. Meanwhile, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce bought the private specialty-finance firm Wellington Financial in January with ambitions to better serve early- and mid-stage companies with broader banking services. In Wellington, CIBC found a team of experienced tech bankers after Canadian institutions largely shed that expertise in the long tail of the dot-com bust; in CIBC, Wellington found a lower cost of capital thanks to its scale, making debt cheaper to sell for clients.

While both players offer a suite of banking services, it’s been their debt offers that caused jaws to drop in Canada’s tech community in 2018 – and has pushed other lenders, including Royal Bank of Canada and Bank of Montreal, to try harder to entice startups with similar offerings.

While no one interviewed for this story would share numbers on specific rate offers they’d seen – rates vary across lenders as well as by company size, stage and revenue model – they all agreed that the past year saw remarkable drops in cost of capital. Two sources ​who were not authorized to share confidential rate proposals said that interest rate offers had fallen from 15 to 20 per cent a year ago, but now hover between 10 and 15 per cent, sometimes falling as low as 6 per cent.

“Entrepreneurs 10 years ago wouldn’t have known about venture debt – now they know about it,” says Mark Usher, the veteran technology banker who is managing director and North American market leader for CIBC Innovation Banking – Wellington’s new moniker – and chair of the Canadian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association.

Mr. Usher cautions that founders should be careful and seek the advice of their investors and board when considering debt financing – and warns, too, that the super-competitive Canadian market is not sustainable in the long run. “It will normalize back to historical returns and rates,” he says. “Venture-debt lenders will take losses at some point, then they’ll realize that they weren’t charging enough to make up for the losses, and that’s how it corrects.”

Many in the sector suggest the first sign of the shifting Canadian venture-debt ecosystem happened in March, when Vancouver social-media company Hootsuite Media Inc. signed a $50-million deal with the newly minted CIBC Innovation Banking, having previously largely worked with Silicon Valley Bank. (The American bank says Hootsuite also remains a current client.)

“Even if we never use it, it’s just a nice cushion, and it really doesn’t cost that much to have it,” says Sid Paquette, a managing partner at OMERS Ventures, who oversees the firm’s investment in Hootsuite. “At almost all of my companies … I’m doing a disservice if I don’t encourage them to take on a little bit of debt right now, because it is so cheap.”

Since then, venture-capital partners and tech executives say, the debt rally in Canada has been adopted by firms of all sizes and stages. Janet Bannister, general partner at Real Ventures in Toronto – which focuses on early-stage investments – says that many companies in her portfolio and on her radar are taking on debt financing, largely to accelerate growth without diluting owners’ stakes.

“The banks are increasingly saying, ‘We need to be the banking partners of these young companies, because some of them are going to grow up and be the next Shopify,’” Ms. Bannister says. Still companies need to be prepared for the debt, she says. “If the interest expenses become so onerous that they are impacting growth by forcing the company to curtail spending on things such as development, sales and-or marketing, that can become a problem.”

Bryn Jones, the co-founder of PartnerStack, a Toronto firm that helps software companies grow through partnerships, has spent the last few months evaluating term sheets. “The only banks that really cared before were from the Bay Area,” Mr. Jones says. Now, he continues, “everybody wants to get into it.” The phenomenon has been helpful for companies such as ChatKit, a Toronto e-commerce chat-marketing startup, which did a debt-financing round with CIBC Innovation Banking last July, says founder and chief executive Mazdak Rezvani. “To build a successful Series A round, you need metrics to appeal to an investor. A few extra months of runway really helps.”

Since the debt-rate battle began earlier this year, “all of the banks now have a tech-lending focus and strategy,” says Mr. Usher. His own firm, CIBC Innovation Banking, even hired tech financier Robert Rosen away from American rival Comerica Inc., a long-time leader in offering debt financing for Canadian startups.

Banks’ embrace of tech companies has in some cases turned into a talent war. Devon Dayton, who’d been a part of CIBC’s technology push, left to join the Bank of Montreal in April, just three months after the Wellington deal. He says he’s now charged with “accelerating” BMO’s tech coverage, including both through banking services and providing debt capital to the sector.

Royal Bank of Canada, meanwhile, turned to established Toronto tech lender Espresso Capital in August to partner for venture-debt deals. Espresso has funded more than 230 deals since 2009, the company says, and recently established a new program to lend to software-as-a-service cloud companies up to 24 times their monthly recurring revenue in growth financing, to a maximum of $10-million.

“For the longest time we were the beneficiary of a massively under-served market,” says Alkarim Jivraj, Espresso’s chief executive. Amid what he calls a “slugfest” between banks to offer debt, he says, “we continue to grow, even with the noise around us.”

A rash of Canadian debt-funding options have emerged, in fact, offering loans on such highly specific terms. Toronto’s Fundthrough offers cash advances between clients’ invoices; Clearbanc, co-founded by serial entrepreneur and Dragons’ DenDragon Michele Romanow – and which just raised US$120-million – helps finance young e-commerce businesses by fronting online ad revenue. “How you fund your company probably ends up being the most important decision you make as a founder,” Ms. Romanow says. “With equity, you never get to give it back …. Coming up with as much alternatives around that is really powerful.”

Silicon Valley Bank, which serviced Canadian businesses for about a dozen years but until recently, did so largely from offices in Seattle and Boston, is looking forward to a formal Canadian licence from the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions.

“What the licence will give us in the new year is the opportunity to have feet on the street [and] meet with clients and investors in a more proactive kind of way,” says Barbara Dirks, the bank’s Canadian head. Her colleague Win Bear, who long worked for the lender’s Boston office, says that it’s a historic moment for startup financing – not just in Canada.

“There’s a lot more competition​,” Mr. Bear says. “It’s really driven down pricing, much in the same way that increased competition on the growth equity side has increased valuations up to levels that some would argue are unprecedented.”

Richard Florida Writes That Canada Is Losing The Global Innovation Race – Globe and Mail

Canadian Venture Investment Is In Decline

Canada’s investment in R & D Has Been Anemic For Decades Compared to OECD Nations

U.S. Tech Giants Are Exploiting Canada’s Talent Base At The Expense of Canadian Startups

My long-time business partner and I, one of us in Canada and the other in Silicon Valley, last year launched a business targeted at bringing immigrant entrepreneurs to Canada, Vendange Partners. http://www.vendangepartners.com.  We spent months analyzing and investigating the Canadian entrepreneurial ecosystem, particularly Vancouver and Toronto, Canadian immigration policy, and the Canadian venture capital industry. What we found was very concerning. Last December, I wrote a blog post here detailing our findings (read more below) that Canada was nowhere close to being the next Silicon Valley. With regard to venture capital, we found that there was a lack of adequate risk capital, which could be traced to deeply rooted conservative values in the Canadian financial industry. Immigration policy was a mixed bag, with a “startup” visa program that had become a magnet for immigration scams.  Despite these disadvantages, we decided to press ahead, and are making progress.

That said, I was very interested yesterday to read the article in the Globe & Mail by University of Toronto Professor Richard Florida, and Ian Hathaway, Research Director for the Center for  American Entrepreneurship, and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute. The article by Florida and Hathaway draws the same conclusions as my research, providing even more precise data to support their disturbing conclusions. It is not hard to find many additional articles on these issues.  Ironically, also yesterday, a LinkedIn connection shared a post by Sciences, Innovation, and Economic Development Canada with a very upbeat, positive assessment of venture capital for startups in Canada. This is the essence of the problem. Since I came to Canada years ago now, I have seen a pollyannaish state of denial about the true situation for entrepreneurship, immigration policy, and the lack of “smart” venture capital for Canadian startups. No amount of counter-evidence has changed this mistaken rosy outlook. Without a recognition of these problems, nothing will change.

 

READ MORE: Canada Woos Tech Startups But Canada Is Not Silicon Valley December 20, 2017, mayo615.com blog post

OPINION

RICHARD FLORIDA AND IAN HATHAWAY

SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL

UPDATED NOVEMBER 2, 2018

Solving Canada’s startup dilemma

Source: Solving Canada’s startup dilemma – The Globe and Mail 

Canada, we increasingly hear, is becoming a global leader in high-tech innovation and entrepreneurship. Report after report has ranked Toronto, Waterloo, and Vancouver among the world’s most up-and-coming tech hubs. Toronto placed fourth in a ranking of North American tech talent this past summer, behind only the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, and Washington, and in 2017 its metro area added more tech jobs than those other three city-regions combined.

All of that is true, but the broader trends provide little reason for complacency. Indeed, our detailed analysis of more than 100,000 startup investments around the world paints a more sobering picture. Canada and its leading cities have seen a substantial rise in their venture capital investments. But both the country and its urban centres have lost ground to global competitors, even as the United States’ position in global start-ups has faltered.

Overall, Canada ranks fifth among countries in the number of venture capital deals and sixth in venture capital investment, trailing only the United States, India, China, Britain, and Germany. That said, Canada’s share of the world’s venture capital investment is tiny, just 1.5 percent. And it has actually declined over the past decade and a half.

But start-ups and entrepreneurship are a local phenomenon: They happen in urban areas. The good news is that a dozen or so of Canada’s cities make the list of the world’s 300-plus startup hubs. And the three largest of them – Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver – rank among the world’s 62 leading global startup hubs.

Toronto, Canada’s top-ranked startup hub, is the only Canadian city to crack the list of the world’s top 25 startup cities. Vancouver and Montreal are in the top 50. Kitchener-Waterloo leads all Canadian cities in venture capital investment per capita, ranking 26th globally on that measure. It and Ottawa also rank among the world’s top 100 startup hubs in terms of capital invested, and Calgary is among the top 150.

The not-so-good news is that Canada and its startup cities are losing ground to startup hubs such as New York and London; Beijing and Shanghai; Bangalore and Mumbai; Berlin, Amsterdam, Stockholm, and Tel Aviv.

More worrying, Canada is failing to take advantage of the United States’ weakening position, which is attributable in part to its tighter immigration policies. While the U.S. continues to generate the largest amount of startup and venture capital activity, its share of the global total has been falling steadily, from more than 95 percent in the mid-1990s to about two-thirds in 2012, and a little more than half today. But the country that has gained the most ground is China, which now attracts nearly a quarter of global venture capital investment.

Exactly why Canada is lagging is unclear. A growing number of Canadian commentators suggest that the influx of large U.S. and Asian tech firms into Canada is sucking up tech talent that would have otherwise gone to local start-ups. But companies like Microsoft and Google are such powerful talent magnets that they are more likely to increase the overall supply. After all, San Francisco, New York, and London are homes to some of the biggest tech companies in the world, and they are also leading startup hubs.

Perhaps the brunt of Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policies has yet to be fully felt. Maybe it is because New York and the San Francisco Bay Area are close enough to lure Canadian entrepreneurs away, or maybe we are just not as entrepreneurial as we like to think.

Whatever the cause, Canada and its leading tech hubs must do more to grow their ecosystems, which already enjoy such clear advantages in talent, especially in the field of artificial intelligence, and their openness to immigration. Given the role that innovation and start-ups play in propelling economic growth and raising living standards, our economic future depends on it.

Richard Florida is University Professor at the University of Toronto’s School of Cities and the Rotman School of Management. Ian Hathaway is Research Director of the Center for American Entrepreneurship and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. They are authors of the Rise of the Global Startup City, released earlier this month.

READ MORE: Rise of The Global Startup City

Uber And The False Hopes Of A Sharing Economy

Regulating Ride-Sharing: New York May Be The Model For The Future

Writing On The Wall: London and Vancouver Moving In A Similar Direction

At its inception, Uber touted itself as a shining example of the “sharing economy” described by Jeremy Rifkin, in this now famous book, The Third Industrial Revolution. As time has passed the reality has been radically at odds with a sharing economy.  Among the many issues that have emerged has been the legacy of Uber’s ugly corporate culture, secret apps used to confound regulators, and to intimidate journalists, a Justice Department investigation of illegal practices, including 200 Uber employees conspiring together to attack Lyft’s operations. The proverbial chickens have come home to roost, as municipalities around the world have begun to regain control of transportation policy within their jurisdictions, and the inflated valuations of these unicorns begin to deflate.

READ MORE:

READ MORE: Wharton Newsletter: Regulating Ride-Sharing: New York May Be The Model For The Future

From the Wharton Newsletter/Podcast, August 14, 2018

The largest market for Uber, Lyft and other ride-hailing app companies — New York City — last week had its first successful attempt at regulating the growth of the nascent industry. On Wednesday, the New York City Council passed a series of bills, notably one that places a one-year moratorium on the issue of new for-hire vehicle (FHV) licenses. Other bills establish minimum wage levels for ride-hailing service drivers; require FHVs to submit data on ridership with penalties for failure to do so; and create driver-assistance centers to provide counseling services.

New York City had little option to act, especially after a similar move by Mayor Bill de Blasio fell apart following intense lobbying by Uber. Increasing road congestion by cars was the biggest contributing factor to the passage of the bill capping new licenses, corroborated by a decline in subway ridership. The number of FHVs in the city had grown from 65,000 in 2015 to about 130,000 currently. Uber is the biggest gainer, as shown by its almost hockey-stick growth in ridership.

New York City took the right steps to regulate the FHV industry, according to Wharton professor of operations, information and decisions Senthil Veeraraghavan. “This is the right way to go,” he said. “This is a great experiment that we’re [witnessing].”

“They had to do something,” noted Wharton management professor John R. Kimberly. “This is part of an obviously much deeper story … and the timing seems to be right.”

The move to ensure that drivers receive a minimum pay of $15 an hour after they cover expenses is also significant, said James Parrott, director of economic and fiscal policies at the New School’s Center for New York City Affairs. He had worked on an extensive study for the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission that looked at the ride-hailing sector and its growth, and in particular its impact on driver earnings.

Kimberly, Veeraraghavan and Parrott discussed the implications of the legislative actions governing New York City’s for-hire vehicle industry on the Knowledge@Wharton radio show on SiriusXM. (Listen to the podcast at the top of this page.)

“This is the right way to go. This is a great experiment that we’re [witnessing].”–Senthil Veeraraghavan

Incentive to Improve

The establishment of a minimum pay for drivers is an important incentive for ride-hailing app companies to increase the utilization of drivers’ time, said Parrott. Drivers currently have a passenger in the car for only about 36 minutes of every hour, which means they don’t have a paying passenger for 42% of their time, he added.

Up to now, Uber’s business model has been “to flood the streets with cars,” since the firm gets a commission based on every fare, Parrott said. “There’s been no incentive for them to better utilize the drivers’ capital,” he added. “Keep in mind; this is an industry where the capital investment in the rolling stock – the cars – is entirely put up by the drivers. The pay standard gives them an incentive by allowing them to pay a little bit less if they make better utilization of the drivers’ time.”

The city will use the year ahead to study congestion levels in the city and find ways to redress that, including through congestion pricing mechanisms. Last week’s actions took a step in that direction with a surcharge on cabs below 96^th Street ($2 per ride for medallion trips and $2.75 for ride-hailing app cabs). It will also allow the city to monitor how the pay standard works out, and how the ride-hailing app companies make better utilization of drivers’ time, Parrott said.

“Even if you increase utilization by 10 percentage points – from 58% to 68% – you would only increase average wait times across the city about 20 to 30 seconds,” said Parrott, citing his study’s findings. “We sense that most people can live with that.”

According to Parrott, the number of Uber trips in the city increased 100% in 2016 and 70% in 2017. Going forward, he said that figure could probably grow another 40% over the next year, “even without any additional cars on the street – just from increased efficiency.” Those increased efficiencies could come from a variety of quarters, including urging part-time drivers to go full-time and recruiting some of the drivers from the non-app services, such as the traditional livery car segment that has no minimum pay standards.

“Uber and the drivers are on both sides of the story,” noted Veeraraghavan. Riders want low waiting times, which can be achieved with more vehicles. But drivers want fewer drivers, because that would allow them to get better pricing, he said.

“Granted it might have been done a lot sooner, but it seems to me that at least in the city of New York there’s a real, serious effort to get their arms around the problem.”–John Kimberly

Worsening Congestion

Parrott said New York City had first started talking about capping Uber and Lyft cars in 2015, drawing “heavy pushback” from the ride-hailing industry at that point. Between then and now, the number of trips using ride-hailing apps has skyrocketed to 600,000 a day, which is more than five times the level in 2015, he noted. A 2016 study by the mayor’s office proposed several remedial measures including those to reduce congestion, improve air quality, protect drivers’ interests and enhance passenger experiences.

Parrott said that while the city bears some responsibility for not acting sooner on the unbridled growth of the FHV industry, it faced a different climate when it attempted that in mid-2015. Uber at the time controlled 90% of the market in the city as opposed to 66% now, he pointed out. Suicides by six cab driversalso highlighted the “economic crisis” and changed public opinion in favor of the changes, he said.

“Theoretically speaking, there’s always a gap between what firms will want to optimize and what society wants to optimize,” said Veeraraghavan. “And it’s hard for individuals to see what’s optimal for this society.” However, as city residents have begun seeing the impact of the FHV industry’s growth — including on public transportation ridership numbers — they now have had a better understanding. “So we have a redo from 2015 to 2017 … and we’re seeing better support for this.”

“Granted, it might have been done a lot sooner, but it seems to me that at least in the city of New York there’s a real, serious effort to get their arms around the problem and to figure out how to solve it,” said Kimberly.

Congestion in New York City has worsened in recent years with not just the influx of cabs, but also other vehicles “providing instant service for a variety of needs that people believe they have,” including delivery vehicles, said Kimberly. “The density of tourists on the sidewalks is so great it spills over into the street – that slows down traffic and makes it hard for cars,” he added. The option of levying congestion pricing is being seriously considered also at the state headquarters in Albany, he noted.

At the same time, “the growth of FHVs has meant that there’s much better transportation access in the outer boroughs, so the city doesn’t want to diminish that newly available service,” said Kimberly. “And yet the city also has a great interest in making sure that the drivers are able to remain economically viable to meet their expenses and to earn a decent living.” Higher wages would also enable drivers to work fewer than the 10-12 hours a day they now put in, he added, and that would have safety benefits as well.

“If they can show that they have stability and regulatory certainty in their largest market in the U.S., that will give investors a lot more certainty….”–James Parrott

Congestion pricing will also help fund investments in maintaining and upgrading the city’s aging subway and public bus system, Parrott said. The decline in mass transit ridership is not just because of the growth of the FHV industry, he noted; commuters are turning away because of “under-investment and under attention to adequately maintaining the mass transit system.”

Uber’s Leadership Challenge

The changes also highlight a “leadership challenge” for Uber, said Kimberly. “They have hundreds of markets around the globe, and each market has its own political configuration, and its own way of doing business,” he noted. “When you think about the challenges of operating an enterprise like Uber on a global basis with all the local idiosyncrasies that need to be taken into account both economically and politically, it’s a really interesting [problem].”

Uber, which is currently valued at about $62 billion, is said to be preparing for an initial public offering of its stock next year. “If they can show that they have stability and regulatory certainty in their largest market in the U.S., that will give investors a lot more certainty about the potential prospects for the company,” said Parrott.

Uber’s impact on employment is also large, Parrott noted. Uber drivers are not legally considered employees, but if they were to be treated as full-time equivalent (FTE) employees, Uber would be the largest private-sector employer in New York City, with about 35,000 FTEs, he said. “[Ride sharing] has become a huge enterprise in New York City, and it and it’s not what people usually think of as gig work where you are doing this to supplement other income. We found that 80% of the drivers bought their cars mainly for the purpose of providing transportation services, and two thirds of the drivers are full-time drivers.”

Parrott noted that both Uber and Lyft embraced the pay standard proposal. But Kimberly thought they had little option in the matter. “I don’t think it’s by accident that they’re embracing the pay standard,” he said. “Left to their own devices, they probably would not have done that. But there’s been so much social criticism – and valid criticism – of their models that they’ve really had no choice.”

Another Silicon Valley Reckoning Is Coming: “Star Entrepreneurs” and Way Too Much Money

Another Silicon Valley reckoning is on the horizon.  We have seen cyclical events like this before, the 2001 bubble burst being the most recent memorable reckoning. The talk in 2001 was about too much “dumb money.” The coming reckoning, however, is on a massive, unprecedented scale, fueled by the same excess of global capital that has fueled the bubbles in housing markets in attractive locations around the World. The problems with Uber, Travis Kalanick, and the now obvious difficulty of the Uber Board of Directors to exercise meaningful governance should have been the “canary in the coal mine.” CNBC’s reporting on the excessive Silicon Valley “unicorn” valuations and media reports that New Enterprise Associates would divest $1 Billion in startup investments that cannot be made liquid has now made the situation blatantly obvious. After a long silence, the Wall Street Journal has finally joined the reporting on the crisis. What more does one need to take to the exit?

 

Source: In ‘Founder Friendly’ Era, Star Tech Entrepreneurs Grab Power, Huge Pay – WSJ

In ‘Founder Friendly’ Era, Star Tech Entrepreneurs Grab Power, Huge Pay

Silicon Valley financiers are losing leverage to star entrepreneurs

Two brothers who are co-founders of online payments startup Stripe, John Collison, left, president, and Patrick Collison, chief executive, have supervoting shares in the company, which was valued at $9 billion in its latest round of fundraising. PHOTO: DAVID PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG NEWS

The Wall Street Journal

By Rolfe Winkler and Maureen Farrell

May 28, 2018 4:25 p.m. ET

Founders of highflying startups are increasingly wresting control of their companies from venture-capital backers and extracting huge pay packages tied to going public.

Venture capitalists had long called the shots in startup boardrooms and continue to be the primary backers of private companies. But in recent years they have had to compete against new classes of investors including mutual funds, sovereign-wealth funds and now Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp. , which has a $92 billion Vision Fund investing in startups.

That has reduced their leverage, shifting power toward star entrepreneurs and adding pressure on VCs to cultivate “founder friendly” reputations that will help them get a piece of the next hot startup. The flood of capital also gives entrepreneurs the ability to pick not just their investors but also when and whether to go public. An initial public offering is the primary way in which VCs cash in on their gains from startup investments.

VCs say empowering founders—through special voting shares, governance rights and other tools—frees them to follow ambitious long-term strategies once their companies go public without having to worry that poor performance will bring pressure from activist investors that scoop up stock. They point to founder-controlled tech companies such as FacebookInc., where founder Mark Zuckerberg had power to make bold moves and resist early pressure to sell the company. Facebook, which went public at around $100 billion, is now valued at roughly five times that.

Venture-capital backers of Stripe Inc., whose software is used by businesses to accept and track digital payments, recently gave the company founders an incentive to go public: special supervoting shares. The move was meant partly to assuage the founders, brothers Patrick and John Collison, that they would keep significant control of the company they founded in 2010 if it went public, people familiar with the matter said.

Many of Stripe’s investors say the founders have earned the right to control the company because it has performed so well. It was valued at $9 billion in its last fundraising round. Until March, when Stripe added its first independent director, the Collison brothers’ only fellow director was Michael Moritz, a partner at Sequoia Capital, one of the company’s earliest investors. Stripe and Sequoia representatives declined to comment.

Glenn Kelman, the longtime chief executive of online real-estate brokerage Redfin Corp.that went public last July, said that in the run-up to the IPO he was pushed to be more disciplined with expenses by two big investors who traditionally buy public-company stocks but also back later-stage private companies. Redfin’s shares are up about 50% since the IPO.

“There is a new world of VCs who really can’t perform their governance functions on boards because they want to preserve their relationship with you,” Mr. Kelman said of the venture-capital industry.

Star founders of private companies often get to pick their own investors, but as public-company CEOs they can’t. Supervoting shares—typically a second class of stock held by insiders that have 10 votes per share—give founders more power to elect directors and approve other items up for shareholder vote and protect them from investors who may have different priorities.

Last year, 67% of U.S. venture-backed tech companies that staged IPOs had supervoting shares for insiders, according to Dealogic, up from 13% in 2010. The proportion of non-tech U.S. venture-backed IPOs with supervoting shares has stayed between 10% to 15% every year over that period.

The proportion rises as tech companies get larger: 72% of founders of U.S. tech startups valued over $1 billion that had IPOs over the past 24 months have supervoting shares, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.

Empowering a founder has risks. Uber Technologies Inc. co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick built a ride-hailing juggernaut valued at $68 billion with a pugnacious leadership style, but that approach ultimately contributed to a series of scandals. His supervoting shares and de facto control of the board made it more difficult for investors to push him out.

They did so last year, and then abolished supervoting rights and adopted a “one share, one vote” policy ahead of a planned 2019 IPO, something Mr. Kalanick ultimately voted in favor of.

Spotify Technology SA’s shareholders issued special “beneficiary certificates” to its founders in February, in part because co-founder and Chief Executive Daniel Ek wanted to maintain control, a person familiar with the arrangement said. The certificates boosted Mr. Ek’s and his co-founder’s voting control to a combined 80.5%, double their economic ownership. Spotify listed its shares in April. A Spotify spokesman declined to comment.

Snap Inc., whose two co-founders control about 90% of its voting power, sold shares with no voting rights in its 2017 IPO, meaning public-market investors don’t have any say on corporate matters.

Evan Spiegel, co-founder and CEO of the Snapchat parent, received a $625 million stock package that vested with the IPO as an incentive to get it done, people familiar with the deal said.

Drew Houston, co-founder and CEO of online-storage company Dropbox Inc., in December got his own stock package worth potentially $590 million partly tied to his company’s March IPO, according to offering documents. The stock vests based on Dropbox’s share price, among other milestones, and he can earn the full amount only if shares reach $90, triple their current value. Mr. Houston already holds nearly $3 billion of Dropbox’s shares.

Bankers and lawyers who work on IPO deals say there is little precedent for big stock packages offered to founders ahead of public offerings, a reflection of venture-capital firms’ decreasing leverage. Snap and Dropbox representatives declined to comment.

Some star founders may even be emboldened to overstep boardroom norms.

WeWork Cos. co-founder and Chief Executive Adam Neumann, who has 65% voting control, is one of two members of his board’s compensation committee, along with longtime company investor Benchmark, according to WeWork’s recent bond-offering documents. Public companies aren’t usually allowed to have their executives on compensation committees—which set executive pay—to avoid conflicts.

A WeWork spokesman said Mr. Neumann takes $1 a year in salary and declined to comment on whether he receives stock compensation or recuses himself from committee discussions of his pay. It is unclear when WeWork will tap the public markets, but the company’s $4.4 billion investment from SoftBank in 2017 was seen as pushing out its need for a public offering potentially for years.

WeWork bond documents show that in 2016 and 2017, the company paid more than 1.3 million shares of class B stock compensation, worth more than $50 million at the company’s current valuation. Mr. Neumann controls 78% of class B shares, which come with supervoting rights.

—Eliot Brown contributed to this article.

Write to Rolfe Winkler at rolfe.winkler@wsj.com and Maureen Farrell at maureen.farrell@wsj.com

OECD Apparently Believes Global Tax Evasion Is A Legacy Issue: A Pigs Will Fly Moment

Tax avoidance is allegedly a ‘legacy issue,’ OECD’s Angel Gurria says

• Gurria was Speaking at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) conference in London
• He said governments were working hard to stop tax avoidance and evasion
• U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May said her government is continuing to work against tax evasion

Published 12 Hours Ago CNBC.com

Photographer | Collection | Getty Images

Amid another leak of documents revealing large-scale international tax avoidance, the secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said Monday that tax avoidance was fast becoming a thing of the past.

“When we’re talking about the ‘Panama Papers’ or ‘Paradise Papers’we’re talking about a legacy that is fast disappearing,” Angel Gurria said.

Speaking at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) conference in London, Gurria said governments were working hard to stop tax avoidance and evasion.

“When we talk about ‘Double Irish’ or ‘Double Dutch’ (tax avoidance schemes) we’re talking about structures which are no longer there,” she said, adding: “This will not be repeated because of the work you and your governments and the OECD have done in the last few years.”

“There is quite literally no place to hide,” he said, noting that 50 countries had implemented automatic information exchanges regarding tax and that more nations were planning to do the same.

Gurria’s comments come after a leak of millions of documents revealing large-scale tax avoidance by high-profile individuals and companies via offshore financial services companies. The latest tax avoidance leak has been dubbed the “Paradise Papers” and comes after a similar leak in 2016 called the “Panama Papers” that showed how a Panamanian law firm allegedly helped its clients to avoid taxes by using offshore tax havens.

Speaking at the same business conference on Monday, U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May said that her government had continued the work against tax evasion that her predecessor David Cameron had begun.

“He started this work, not only in the U.K. economy but on an international stage. So we have seen more revenues coming into HMRC (the U.K.’s tax-collecting department) over the last few years, with £160 billion extra since 2010,” she said.

More work was being done to ensure “greater transparency” in the U.K.’s dependencies and British overseas territories, May said, and HMRC was already able to access more information about so-called “shell” companies.

“We want people to pay the tax that is due,” she said. That sentiment was echoed by the leader of the opposition Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn, who said that society was “undermined” by anyone that did not pay the tax they owed.

Paradise Papers: KPMG Canadian Isle of Man Tax Evasion Scheme Back In the News

BBC Report Shows Isle of Man Government Eager to Aid Tax Evasion

Formula 1 Driver Lewis Hamilton Evaded £ 3.3 Million VAT By Registering His Citation Jet in the Isle of Man

Both CRA and UK Inland Revenue Are Investigating. Even Donald Trump has used this tax evasion scheme

This week’s new offshore tax haven treasure trove from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), known as the Paradise Papers, has offered further evidence why KPMG Canada chose the Isle of Man for its Canadian tax evasion scheme. The ICIJ also released the now infamous Panama Papers in 2016. Both the UK Inland Revenue and the Canada Revenue Agency are investigating these new revelations.  With so many offshore tax haven and tax evasion schemes afoot, it is difficult to keep track of them all, but it is not difficult to see the impact on the 99% of us who don’t have access to offshore tax havens.

READ MORE: Canada Losing Billions More Than Estimated To Offshore Tax Havens

PARADISE PAPERS

Helping rich avoid taxes on luxury jets and yachts is its own subspecialty in offshore tax havens

Formula One driver, Saudi prince and Trump have all benefited from registering jets through offshore companies

By Ryan Chittum, Tim Robinson and Juliette Garside, ICIJ Posted: Nov 06, 2017 1:00 PM ET Last Updated: Nov 06, 2017 1:00 PM ET

Race car driver Lewis Hamilton posted this picture of himself atop his jet to Facebook on Dec. 31, 2016. Leaked documents show he was advised to touch down on the Isle of Man on his inaugural flight to avoid paying tax on the $27 million US jet and later received a VAT refund of more than $5 million US. (Lewis Hamilton via Facebook)

About The Author

Ryan Chittum, Tim Robinson and Juliette Garside

Ryan Chittum, Tim Robinson and Juliette Garside are journalists with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a global network of more than 200 journalists in 70 countries who collaborate on in-depth stories. After investigating revelations in the Panama Papers in 2016, the ICIJ is now probing the Paradise Papers.

 

Formula One auto racing star Lewis Hamilton got a new luxury jet, a $27-million US candy-apple red Bombardier Challenger 605 with Armani curtains. He also got a refund on the value-added tax.

And the lawyers at Appleby, an elite law firm founded in Bermuda, were there to help.

They teamed with the London-based accounting giant Ernst & Young to craft a plan to sidestep the VAT, a consumption tax charged in Europe on everything from socks to cars. One of the conditions: Hamilton’s inaugural flight would have to touch down on the Isle of Man, the British crown dependency in the Irish Sea known for its lenient tax treatment of the world’s super-rich.

“This will involve a short stay, normally less than two hours,” Appleby said in a written explanation of the tax-avoidance strategy.

Hamilton arrives with his girlfriend, singer Nicole Scherzinger, for the Malaysian F1 Grand Prix at Sepang International Circuit outside Kuala Lumpur in 2012. (Edgar Su/Reuters)

Hamilton and his girlfriend, Pussycat Dolls pop star Nicole Scherzinger, planned a layover in the Isle of Man on their first time out to Europe on his new jet in January 2013, according to an itinerary sent to Appleby.

It’s not known whether they actually made the trip. But in the end, Hamilton did pick up a $5.2- million VAT refund, according to secret documents reviewed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the BBC, the Guardian and CBC News, among others.

The documents come from the internal files of offshore law firm Appleby and corporate services provider Estera, two businesses that operated together under the Appleby name until Estera became independent in 2016. The files were originally leaked to the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

The leaked documents from Appleby and other sources reveal a long list of rich people who rely on offshore operatives to handle the tax issues and other challenges related to luxury planes and boats. Among them: celebrities like Hamilton, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and other royalty, and politicians or figures connected to them.

In Hamilton’s case, his lawyers provided a statement to the Guardian that said the race car driver has a set of professionals in place who run most aspects of his business operations on his behalf. They also said no subterfuge or improper levels of secrecy have been put in place.

Shielding offshore trillions

The purchase of Hamilton’s jet illuminates a low-profile network of lawyers, bankers, accountants, financial advisors and other professionals who operate offshore, in the gray international area between tax jurisdictions. This global system helps shield assets from taxes, creditors, and competitors and has been instrumental in luring trillions of dollars offshore, forcing other taxpayers to make up the difference.

The offshore subspecialty handling private jets and mega-yachts has prospered even as concerns about the wealth and privileges of the global one per cent have grown.

The yacht-and-jet offshoring business extends far beyond secretive tax havens and discreet law firms. It has involved U.S. banking giants such as Wells Fargo & Co. and U.S. law powerhouses including Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. The banks have helped create trusts that have enabled otherwise ineligible foreigners to register jets in the U.S., which can increase their resale value. Akin Gump helped an Arab monarchy qualify for a VAT refund on private jets it wanted to turn into spy planes.

A spokeswoman for Wells Fargo said the bank is in the process of exiting  the business of acting as trustee for foreign owners of non-commercial jets. “As a regular course of business, Wells Fargo evaluates its products and services to make sure we deliver the best experience for our customers while maintaining appropriate risk levels,” she said.

These arrangements allow the rich to exploit the weaknesses of the international tax system through “hidden ownership and circular financing schemes,” said Alex Cobham, chief executive of Tax Justice Network, a U.K.-headquartered nonprofit that fights financial secrecy.

U.S. President Donald Trump is among those who have taken advantage of offshore arrangements to organize ownership of private aircraft.

U.S. President Donald Trump has used offshore arrangements for the ownership of at least two aircraft. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

A set of leaked documents from the Bermuda corporate registry, not related to Appleby, list Trump as the owner of a Bermuda shell company that in turn owned a Boeing 727 jet used by Trump, who put it up for sale in 2009. Trump disclosed the company, D.J. Aerospace (Bermuda) Limited, in his election disclosure filings. The jet is now owned by Weststar Aviation, a Malaysian company.

The Wall Street Journal reported in December that another Trump aircraft — a Boeing 757-200 he used during his presidential campaign — is controlled via a complex ownership and leasing setup. The arrangement could have allowed him to avoid paying the $3.1 million New York sales tax up front and instead pay it in installments instead.

Trump did not respond to requests for comment from ICIJ and partners.

• CBC’s full coverage of the Paradise Papers

• Nike shifted billions in profits from Europe to tax-free Bermuda, Paradise Papers leak shows

• Huge offshore data leak reveals financial secrets of global elite — from the Queen to former PMs

• Billionaires’ law firm helped wage ‘Kill Bill’ campaign to block offshore tax legislation

• More than 3,000 Canadian names in the Paradise Papers

Isle of riches

A craggy, rainswept island otherwise known for its tailless Manx cats, the Isle of Man has long been a key outpost in the offshore industry.

It has a “partnership” with the U.K., but it controls its own domestic policy — and has turned itself into an attractive hub in the global financial system by offering low tax rates and tolerating high levels of corporate secrecy. It didn’t even have an aircraft registry until 2007 but now maintains the largest offshore plane registry in the world. Roughly 1,000 private airplanes registered there. Each generates fees to the island’s financial services industry, the Isle of Man’s biggest employer.

The registry’s growth is in part due to the isle of Man’s lenient VAT policy and tolerance for arrangements, like those Appleby helped create, that exploit it. Indeed, Appleby alone has been responsible for creating companies that owned at least 48 private jets with an average price of $33.9 million, according to an analysis of the law firm’s internal documents by the BBC and ICIJ.

Appleby also has a big business in registering yachts, particularly in the Cayman Islands, where it has registered offshore companies that claim ownership of dozens yachts and ships. These include boats owned by the royal families of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, Russian fertilizer billionaire Andrey Guryev, and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Guryev did not respond to request for comment. An Allen representative declined to comment.

On the Isle of Man, Appleby has drawn big-name customers by creating offshore arrangements that push the boundaries of EU tax rules, according to international tax experts contacted by ICIJ and its partners the BBC and The Guardian.

Some of the complex Isle of Man arrangements don’t appear to meet the criteria set out in the EU’s VAT exemption language, tax experts say. EU language, for instance, requires companies to be real operating businesses and not so-called “letterbox” companies.

• Trudeau’s chief fundraiser linked to Cayman Islands tax scheme

• Queen’s estate ‘not aware’ it held indirect offshore investment in stores accused of exploiting poor

• U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross benefited from ties to Putin’s inner circle, offshore tax leak shows

“It doesn’t pass the smell test,” said Maria Martinez, a former international tax attorney now with the antipoverty nonprofit Oxfam America, referring to the Isle of Man’s treatment of many of its arrangements.

After the ICIJ partners sent questions about the arrangements to the Isle of Man’s government, its chief minister, Howard Quayle, called a press conference.

“We have found no evidence of wrongdoing or reason to believe that our customs and excise division has been involved in a mistaken refunding of VAT.” Quayle said on Oct. 23. “The Isle of Man is not a place that welcomes those seeking to evade or abusively avoid taxes.”

At the same time, however, he announced that he had invited the UK Treasury to conduct an assessment of the Isle’s jet registration business.

And in response to The Guardian and ICIJ questions, the government disclosed that VAT refunds for 231 jets registered on the Isle totalled more than $1 billion. Without the Isle of Man structures, much of that revenue would have gone to EU countries where the planes would have been registered.

Tougher information-sharing requirements for the offshore industry are required to stop the wealthy from going offshore, said Gabriel Zucman, an assistant professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley

“The offshore system benefits a tiny elite who uses it to avoid and sometimes evade billions of dollars in taxes,” said Zucman, who is also author of The Hidden Wealth of Nations. “Unless we are willing to accept ever rising inequality, this situation is unsustainable.”

Only 1 layover needed

The exemption that Appleby helped secure for Formula One champ Hamilton’s jet, for instance, shows how expansively the Isle of Man interprets EU aircraft rules.

Appleby set up an Isle of Man company called Stealth (IOM) Limited to lease the jet from Hamilton’s British Virgin Islands holding company, Stealth Aviation Limited, and import the plane onto the Isle of Man and thus, into the EU. The letterbox company then subleased it to TAG Aviation Limited, a third-party jet operator in England.

But EU rules require that the company that imports the plane be a real – not a shell – company that actually operates in the EU. Stealth (IOM) Limited has no employees.

Knock on the door of 33-37 Athol Street in Douglas, the capital, and you’ll find an Appleby office that also serves as headquarters for more than 1,100 companies and trusts. Stealth (IOM) Limited has no staff, no building of its own.

Beachgoers in the town of Peel on the Isle of Man. The island didn’t even have an aircraft registry until 2007 but now maintains the largest offshore plane registry in the world. (Raphael Satter/Associated Press)

Despite the fact that the importing firm clearly exists only on paper, Isle of Man officials pre-approved Hamilton’s arrangement. After that, all that was required was a layover on the Isle of Man for customs to sign the jet’s paperwork allowing the VAT refund. Neither Hamilton nor his plane ever had to visit the island again.

Appleby sold its Isle of Man jet operation and the rest of its fiduciary business to the unit’s managers in early 2016. The new company took the name Estera.

In their statement, Hamilton’s lawyers said Stealth (IOM) Limited is not a shell company and was formed to run a leasing business and hire the aircraft on a long-term basis at a commercial rate. They added that the company made all necessary disclosures to Isle of Man officials, who approved the approach.

The lawyers said that reducing taxes was not the motive, but even if it had been, it is lawful to lease rather than buy in order to reduce VAT.

They added that it was not correct that Hamilton had paid no VAT on any of the arrangements.

All that was required for Hamilton, shown above after winning the World Championship in Mexico City on Oct. 29, 2017, to get his $5 million tax refund was one layover on the Isle of Man. Neither Hamilton nor his plane ever had to visit the island again. (Edgard Garrido/Reuters )

In a separate statement, Ernst & Young said commercial leasing arrangements such as those used by Hamilton constitute entirely legitimate commercial practice. The accounting firm said that as a commercial business, the import company is entitled to reclaim the VAT incurred on its business asset against the VAT which it is due to pay on the import of the aircraft into the European Union, if the aircraft is being used wholly or predominantly for business purposes by the end user.

“All our advice, whether in planning or compliance, is based on our knowledge of tax law and providing transparency to tax authorities…,” Ernst & Young said in a statement. “Our services are underpinned by a firm-wide global code of conduct.”

It could not be determined whether any Hamilton entities paid VAT on trips within the EU.

EU rules forbid VAT refunds for personal jet purchases and imports. Hamilton, however, received a refund even though he had planned to use the plane for non-business purposes one-third of the time, according to draft leases in the Appleby files. And his social media feeds and website frequently flaunt his private use of the plane.

One video uploaded to Hamilton’s YouTube account shows him, his dog “Coco,” and some friends aboard the plane, followed by scenes of him cavorting on four-wheeled dirt bikes in Colorado and dancing and drinking at a 2015 festival in Barbados.

A video from Lewis Hamilton’s YouTube account shows his dogs boarding his private jet.

The jet was used primarily for business purposes, Hamilton’s lawyers said, adding that on the few occasions that it was used for private purposes, a proper hire charge was invoiced and paid.

An unsigned statement on behalf of the Isle of Man Government to The Guardian said the government is committed to enforcing tax rules.

“Whilst it is clear that no jurisdiction in the world could ever guarantee that instances of evasion, abusive tax avoidance and error do not occur on an individual basis, the Isle of Man is committed to ensuring that it is not used by those seeking to evade taxes or to abusively avoid taxes,” the statement said.

It adds that in October 2016 it began “to review the accuracy and efficacy of the declarations being made to it” by the roughly 270 aircraft ownership arrangement there.

The arrangements aren’t so unusual among the very rich.

Even the United Arab Emirates – one of the world’s wealthiest countries  –  sought to avoid the VAT with Appleby’s help. In 2012, the Persian Gulf monarchy bought two Bombardier Global 6000s for $120 million and committed to pay $98 million more to convert them into high-tech spy planes.

Because it’s a state, the UAE wasn’t eligible to register an aircraft in the Isle of Man. Appleby and Akin Gump, a Washington-based international law firm, lent a hand. Appleby created a shell company called Advanced Integrated Systems (IOM) Limited that could register the aircraft on behalf of the authoritarian monarchy.

Appleby also got assurance from the island’s customs officials that the planes wouldn’t be taxed. Akin Gump helped arrange Appleby’s registration of the plane, according to emails sent from its lawyers to Appleby. Neither Akin Gump nor the UAE returned requests for comment.

Not all maneuvers involve the Isle of Man, of course, and not all of them are particularly complicated.

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, appears in the leak of documents from offshore law firm Appleby as someone who benefited from offshore schemes to avoid paying tax on luxury planes and boats. (Bandar Algaloud/Courtesy of Saudi Royal Court)

When Mohammed bin Salman, now crown prince of Saudi Arabia, bought the mega-yacht Serene from Russian vodka billionaire Yuri Shefler for $456 million, it was docked in port in La Ciotat, in the south of France. Serene’s 30,000 square feet of living space includes an underwater viewing room, a climbing wall, a cinema and an indoor seawater pool, as well as space for 52 crew members. The yacht also features a helicopter hangar, at least five onboard boats, and a submarine garage.

Advisors proposed motoring the 134-metre yacht to international waters in the western Mediterranean and closing the sale there, according to documents sent from the American law firm Baker McKenzie to Appleby in 2015.

It’s unclear whether the plan was carried out, or whether any VAT was ultimately paid. A spokeswoman for the Saudi government declined to comment, as did Baker McKenzie.

Martinez, of Oxfam, said moving yachts is a common tax avoidance strategy. “If you’re in international waters, no country can claim it,” she said. “It’s stateless income.” Whether the sale closed in international waters and whether the location was part of a tax-avoidance strategy could not be learned.

CBC is part of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists that produced this story but did not independently verify the specific allegations.

CMIG , new owner of Grouse Mtn. has ties to Anbang Insurance

From The Globe and Mail:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/grouse-mountain-acquisition-just-the-start-for-chinese-investment-firm-banker-says/article35699906/

Via The Globe and Mail’s Android app

Uber is Enron Deja Vu: Culture Trumps Strategy

A Silicon Valley Tragedy

Remember Enron’s “Smartest Guys in the Room?”

An early photo of Uber’s management team

Why did Uber spin so wildly out of control?

For over a  year now I have blogged here about the red flags flying about Travis Kalanick and Uber. Many investigative articles have been published over this time, in the New York Times and other publications, which have raised disturbing questions about Uber, Kalanick and some members of his team. The Board of Directors has finally taken action but it feels like its a day late and a dollar short.  Why did it take so long?  I have bluntly used the epithet that “Uber is Trump,” but now on reflection, it is more apt to describe Uber as Enron the sequel, and “deja vu all over again.” Remember the audio of two Enron electricity traders laughing about “screwing grandma?” That is Uber.

Culture Trumps Strategy

So as the current management adage says, culture trumps strategy.  This is not simply about the bad behavior of a few individuals and that eliminating them will solve Uber’s problems. The aggressive, confrontational business strategy is itself an integral and inextricable part of the problem. Some have said that Uber has a good business model and deserves to succeed.  I dispute that.  Jeremy Rifkin’s Third Industrial Revolution describes his vision for a new sharing economy.  The book has been read by world leaders and praised for its insights into a bright new evolving economy.  Uber and other companies like it have morphed the sharing economy into something ugly.

Uber morphed the sharing economy into “the gig economy,” epitomized by jobs without security or benefits, and the now viral video of Kalanick berating an Uber driver who was going bankrupt. SFGate also exposed the Uber operating strategy of psychologically manipulating drivers to work more hours than intended. The central principle of Kalanick’s business strategy is what he euphemistically describes as “principled confrontation.” Uber enters a market without following any existing rules or regulations, simultaneously entering into negotiations with municipalities which are typified by stalling tactics from Uber, and no intention to conclude an agreement. Uber’s goal is to take over the market by force, making any agreements with municipalities unnecessary. While pursuing its strong-arm goal, Uber has used a software tool, Greyball, to evade law enforcement. Uber is now under criminal investigation for the use of Greyball. Even the notion that Uber somehow improves traffic congestion has been debunked by a Northwestern University study commissioned by the San Francisco Transportation Authority which found that ride sharing has a heavy negative impact on San Francisco’s traffic congestion. See www.sfcta.org/TNCsToday

Uber is also facing a major lawsuit from Google for expropriating Google driverless car technology by hiring one of Google’s engineers. Uber has now fired the engineer in question, but the firing itself may be a circumstantial admission that its intent was to steal Google IP.  In another case, nearly 200 Uber employees were encouraged to use fake ID, burner phones and credit cards to sabotage Lyft, by booking and then quickly canceling more than 5000 rides with Lyft. Then there is the matter of what can now only be described as pervasive sexual harassment within Uber. Adding to all of these issues, local communities have begun to resist Uber much more aggressively. In one example, a protest movement in Oakland is opposing Uber’s plan to open offices in Oakland. There are other examples dotted around the World. Finally, there is the unresolved matter of the status of Uber’s drivers as “independent contractors or employees” which is nearing a final decision in California state and federal courts.

Clearly, Uber’s business strategy is driven by its ugly corporate culture. Stepping back to consider the complete picture, Uber’s business strategy looks to me like a house of cards.

Uber’s Leadership Conundrum

Those who know me and my blogs here know that I am a student of Harvard Business School professor John Kotter and his philosophy of leadership with humility at its core.  Uber presents a leadership conundrum for me. I was interested to hear BackChannel journalist Jessi Hempel express the same point tonight on PBS Newshour.  Uber obviously urgently needs to change its culture, yet without the wild aggressive culture defined by Kalanick, the question remains whether Uber can survive? It is not clear to me that humility could turn the Uber cultural battleship. There have also been a number of business articles suggesting that changing a corporate culture is far more challenging than changing a corporate strategy. So I am left to ponder Peter Drucker’s Four Quadrants of Managerial Behavior, and Quadrant Four’s “high task, low relationship” model for Uber. I learned this in Intel’s M Series management courses years ago. The course used the case study of the film “12 O’Clock High,” a demoralized B-17 bomber unit as its example. Gregory Peck arrives as the new unit commander and begins by “kicking ass and taking names.”  A similar case would be George Patton’s arrival in North Africa to take command of a demoralized tank unit.  My sense at the moment is the only best hope is that somehow an interim leader at Uber will have the latitude to take whatever actions he deems necessary to right the ship.  Such a solution seems doubtful at the moment.

Business Ethics Missing in Action

This morning on NPR’s Morning Edition, Nina Kim interviewed the Director of the Markulla Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, Kirk Hansen. The Center is named for early Intel and Apple executive, Mike Markkula. Mr. Hansen said that “Uber will undoubtedly become one of the most important business case studies” to emerge from Silicon Valley. Hansen went on to point out that founders of startups are often not capable of taking the company to a mature large company, and that it may be necessary to remove or reassign the founder. In the case of Uber, this is impossible because Kalanick and his founder group have the majority of shares.  This contrasts with most startups legal framework, where the investors or Board may hold the right to remove the founder in specific circumstances.

The Smartest Guys in the Room

As a grey-haired Silicon Valley alumni, I am personally offended and outraged by what has happened at Uber. I am deeply ashamed. Over the years I have worked for some well-known SV companies, startups, VC firms, and my own consultancy. I have personal knowledge of things that happened that were not kosher, and I have been present in situations where the ethics were not the best, but nothing in my Silicon Valley experience rises to the level of Uber. Something has gone wildly out of control since my time with how we conduct ourselves in business, and it is now tarnishing the history and reputation of fifty years of Silicon Valley achievements. From my own personal experience working at one wildly successful company years ago, and after rewatching the Enron documentary video,  “The Smartest Guys in the Room,” the answer is simple: too much money.

 

Source: Uber CEO Kalanick likely to take leave, SVP Michael out: source | Reuters

TECHNOLOGY NEWS | Mon Jun 12, 2017 | 4:22pm ED

By Heather Somerville and Joseph Menn | SAN FRANCISCO | Reuters

Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] Chief Executive Travis Kalanick is likely to take a leave of absence from the troubled ride-hailing company, but no final decision has yet been made, according to a source familiar with the outcome of a Sunday board meeting.

Emil Michael, senior vice president, and a close Kalanick ally has left the company, the source said.

At the Sunday meeting, the company’s board adopted a series of recommendations from the law firm of former U.S Attorney General Eric Holder following a sprawling, multi-month investigation into Uber’s culture and practices, according to a board representative.

Uber will tell employees about the recommendations on Tuesday, said the representative, who declined to be identified.

The company is also adding a new independent director, Nestle executive, and Alibaba board member Wan Ling Martello, a company spokesman said.

Holder and his law firm were retained by Uber in February to investigate company practices after former Uber engineer Susan Fowler published a blog post detailing what she described as sexual harassment and a lack of a suitable response by senior managers.

The recommendations in Holder’s firm’s report place greater controls on spending, human resources and other areas where executives led by Kalanick have had a surprising amount of autonomy for a company with more than 12,000 employees, sources familiar with the matter said.

Kalanick and two allies on the board have voting control of the company. Kalanick’s forceful personality and enormous success with Uber to date, as well as his super-voting shares, have won him broad deference in the boardroom, according to the people familiar with the deliberations.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick speaks to students during an interaction at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) campus in Mumbai, India, January 19, 2016. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui/File photo

Any decision to take a leave of absence will ultimately be Kalanick’s, one source said.

The world’s most valuable venture-backed private company has found itself at a crossroads as its rough-and-tumble approach to local regulations and handling employees and drivers has led to a series of problems.

It is facing a criminal probe by the U.S. Department of Justice over its use of a software tool that helped its drivers evade local transportation regulators, sources have told Reuters.

Last week, Uber said it fired 20 staff after another law firm looked into 215 cases encompassing complaints of sexual harassment, discrimination, unprofessional behavior, bullying and other employee claims.

SILICON VALLEY SHOCK

Even a temporary departure by Kalanick would be a shock for the Silicon Valley startup world, where company founders in recent years have enjoyed more autonomy and often become synonymous with their firms.

Uber’s image, culture, and practices have been largely defined by Kalanick’s brash approach, company insiders and investors previously told Reuters.

Uber board member Arianna Huffington said in March that Kalanick needed to change his leadership style from that of a “scrappy entrepreneur” to be more like a “leader of a major global company.” The board has been looking for a chief operating officer to help Kalanick run the company since March.

The debate over Kalanick’s future comes as he is also facing a personal trauma: His mother died last month in a boating accident, in which his father was also badly injured.

Michael, described by employees as Kalanick’s closest deputy, has been a recurring flashpoint for controversy at the company.

He once discussed hiring private investigators to probe the personal lives of reporters writing stories faulting the company. Kalanick disavowed and publicly criticized the comments.

Michael will be replaced as the company’s top business development executive by David Richter, currently an Uber vice president, the company spokesman said.

Alongside Uber’s management crisis, its self-driving car program is in jeopardy after a lawsuit from Alphabet Inc alleging trade secrets theft, and the company has suffered an exodus of top executives.

One Uber investor called the board’s decisions on Sunday a step in the right direction, giving Uber an “opportunity to reboot.”