Telegraph-Journal, New Brunswick, Canada
June 6 2009
Atlantic Business Summit Halifax executive tells New Brunswickers how
to really lure corporations to the province: We need to stand out a
little bit
TORONTO – So the big Toronto banks won’t lend to Atlantic Canadian
companies. So what, says George Armoyan, a man who has made millions
thinking for himself.
If getting financing is as tough as Bill Barrett, chairman of the
company wiring rural New Brunswick with high-speed Internet, told a
crowd in Toronto – saying Barrett Xplore approached 20 Canadian banks
and lending firms before finally getting money from an American one –
the provinces should simply create the financing themselves, Armoyan
said.
How? Use their pension funds to invest in corporations that commit to
keeping their head offices in the region, said Armoyan, a former
boxing manager who is chairman of Halifax activist investment firm
Clarke Inc.
"Quebec does this. Why can’t we?" he said. "We need to start being
aggressive."
It was one of a dozen ideas he tossed out during a packed panel
session at Friday’s Atlantic Business Summit, where the opinionated
investor was the man of the hour. There were few problems he didn’t
have an answer for.
Atlantic Canada has a hard time attracting outside private sector
investment? Forget lower corporate taxes – maybe the region should
create a full-fledged tax haven along the lines of Turks and Caicos,
Armoyan said, and really lure corporations here.
"We need to create a competitive advantage," he said. "We need to
stand out a little bit."
Immigrants keep leaving the region for larger centres in Canada? Make
them sign contracts to stay in the province they entered through when
they first immigrated to Canada, said the Armenian-born Armoyan.
If Armoyan were running things, he’d also kick the region’s business
professors out of the classroom, and make them work in the private
sector for a year for a crash-course in reality. And he’d pay them
less, so they’d be required to do consulting work to earn the rest of
their money like their American counterparts.
"Right now, the only engagement I see in the private sector from our
universities is ‘Give me money, give me money,’ " he said.
Dan MacDonald, president and CEO of InNOVAcorp, agreed, saying
collaboration between Atlantic Canada’s many universities and the
business community was "zero per cent."
A little more collaboration might be a good thing for students, too,
said Gordon Fullerton, an associate dean from the Sobey School of
Business. He’s taught at business schools in both Ontario and Nova
Scotia – and says the Maritime students are decidedly less sure of
themselves.
"The single biggest difference is self-confidence," he said.
For a region with such a strong tradition of entrepreneurism, Atlantic
Canada does a poor job of celebrating its success stories, Armoyan
said. Maybe that’s partly why young people aren’t encouraged to start
their own businesses, he said.
"You have to be either a crook or mafia to be a story," he said.
And with few young business leaders stepping up, it’s not clear where
the region’s next generation of directors and executives will come
from.
That’s a concern to Andrew Oland, president of Mooshead Breweries, who
worried aloud that with no transition plans in place, some of the
Maritimes’ biggest family-run business will be broken up, sold, and
moved out of the region.
"They will be uprooting and leaving the Maritimes. You can be sure of
that," Oland said.
photo: George Armoyan, chairman of Halifax investment firm Clarke
Inc., holds court during a panel discussion on improving Atlantic
Canada’s competitiveness during the Atlantic Business Summit in
Toronto Friday.
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