UrtheCast Corp. (TSX:UR) (“UrtheCast” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce Sai W. Chu will be appointed Chief Financial Officer of the Company in late March 2017.
Mr. Chu will succeed Issa Nakhleh, who will be resigning from the Company after nearly five years to pursue other interests. Mr. Nakhleh will remain as CFO until the Company has filed its annual financial results for the year ended December 31, 2016, after which point Mr. Chu will take over the role. Until such time, Mr. Chu will participate in the transition process as a consultant to the Company. After his resignation, Mr. Nakhleh will continue with UrtheCast under a consulting arrangement to assist with the transition and to bring certain projects to completion.
Mr. Chu brings extensive experience in financial management, business development and capital markets to UrtheCast. Prior to joining UrtheCast, Mr. Chu served as the Chief Financial Officer of Vancouver-based Seaspan Corporation (NYSE: SSW) where he played a key role in its growth from a $500 million-enterprise value, privately-held company to a New York Stock Exchange-listed company with an enterprise value in excess of $7 billion. During Mr. Chu’s twelve year tenure at Seaspan, it became the largest container ship lessor in the world, raising over $10 billion in capital through a series of innovative transactions to support its growth. Prior to joining Seaspan, Mr. Chu was the Corporate Controller at TSX-listed Datawest Solutions Inc., which is now part of Fiserv Inc. Mr. Chu qualified as a Certified Management Accountant in 1990 and as a Chartered Accountant in 1992 having articled with KPMG’s Vancouver office.
“Sai brings to UrtheCast a wealth of experience in sourcing and structuring complex financings and managing high-growth global companies. We are extremely pleased to have him as the new CFO of our Company,” said Wade Larson, President and Chief Executive Officer of UrtheCast. “With Sai’s experience and successful track record in leadership roles with publicly-traded companies, we are confident that UrtheCast has secured a highly-qualified CFO to complement our management team and help us achieve our short and long-term objectives.
“On behalf of our Board of Directors and senior management, I would like to thank Issa for his many contributions in helping us grow the Company to this point, and as colleagues and friends, wish him all the best in his future endeavors.”
Mr. Chu commented: “I am excited to join UrtheCast during a pivotal time, as the Company is poised to accelerate its growth. I am impressed with UrtheCast’s team, its technologies and its growing customer base. I look forward to working with my new colleagues to execute the Company’s strategic plan and to create long-term value for UrtheCast’s shareholders.”
UrtheCast also reports that its 2016 non-IFRS revenue is expected to be approximately $50M (2015 – $26M). The guidance previously disclosed by UrtheCast for this figure was a range of $55M to $60M. For its 2016 adjusted EBITDA, UrtheCast expects to be near the top end of the previously disclosed range of $4.2M to $6.2M. During the fourth quarter of 2016, UrtheCast also wrote down, as a non-cash asset impairment charge, its International Space Station-based sensors by a further $3.1M, bringing the closing balance sheet amount to $9.4M. Year-end cash balances were approximately $8M. UrtheCast’s preliminary view for 2017 is for growing non-IFRS revenues and expanding adjusted EBITDA margins over 2016 with similar seasonality to that of 2016.
ABOUT URTHECAST CORP.
UrtheCast Corp. is a Vancouver-based technology company that serves the rapidly evolving geospatial and geoanalytics markets with a wide range of information-rich products and services. The Company operates Earth Observation (EO) sensors in space, including two satellites, Deimos-1 and Deimos-2, to produce imagery data that is displayed on UrtheCast’s cloud-based web platform and distributed directly to partners and customers. Through its subsidiary Deimos Imaging, UrtheCast processes and distributes imagery data and value-added products on behalf of the PanGeo Alliance, a network of eight satellite operators with a combined 15 medium- and high-resolution EO sensors. UrtheCast is also developing and anticipates launching the world’s first fully-integrated constellation of multispectral optical and SAR satellites, called OptiSAR™, in addition to its planned UrtheDaily™ Constellation, which the Company believes will together revolutionize monitoring of our planet with medium- and high-resolution, high-coverage and high-revisit imagery in all weather conditions, any time of day. Common shares of UrtheCast trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange as ticker ‘UR’.
For more information, visit UrtheCast’s website at www.urthecast.com.
