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The BDR Team
BDR brings together a small
core team of senior energy utility and investment banking professionals.
Our senior staff are hands-on in every assignment, for every client,
large or small. Our core competencies
are mergers/acquisitions, business planning, project financial analysis,
regulatory policy, cost allocations and rate design.
Our qualifications include MBA degrees, accounting designations and
civil engineering.
The BDR team also maintains
a network of allies with complementary skills and experience.
When these skills are needed, we bring our clients an integrated
project team that may include electrical engineers, lawyers, economists,
forecasters statisticians, public practice accountants or specialists in
metering, IT and communications. The
BDR core team members are disciplined project managers, offering the right
skill sets from the right providers, seamlessly.
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John is a lawyer by
training and an independent investment banker by profession. He has over 30
years experience in the areas of business and enterprise valuations,
financing and capital markets activities, and mergers and acquisitions
(M&A). He has worked extensively
throughout North America and in the United Kingdom and over the past ten
years he has specialized in the energy sector.
John has advised Ontario municipalities and utility clients
seeking improvements to performance in the distribution sector through
mergers or acquisitions, as well as sector participants interested in
developing or purchasing generation assets. He assists his clients in
evaluating the opportunities offered by the Green Energy and Green Economy
Act, including development of renewable power projects. Other projects
have involved divestiture of non-core businesses such as water heater rental
or fibre assets.
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John's services include business valuations that combine discounted cash
flow modeling with analysis of comparable transactions. He assists
vendors in managing competitive auctions for their assets, and purchasers in
developing their offers. His experience with large and small
transactions enables him to suggest potential buyers, and to bring forward
creative transaction structures that include joint ventures and earn-outs.
His capital markets experience enables him to evaluate financing
alternatives, draft term sheets, and negotiate with lenders to support a
successful outcome.
For clients not yet
committed to a transaction, John provides an unbiased review of business and
ownership options that incorporates the qualitative as well as the financial
reasons to hold, merge, acquire or sell. He understands that community
values are a key factor, especially in decisions affecting municipally-owned
businesses.
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Neill is a professional
accountant with over 30 years of utility and municipal experience in various
finance, accounting, information systems, risk management, rates and
regulatory, taxation and treasury, functions. His primarily focus is to
advise electricity industry clients on matters of operational and due
diligence reviews as well as strategic and business planning. He provides
financial, management, and administrative advice to municipalities and
utilities in developing strategic business plans including the delivery of
financial models and analysis. Neill has advised over 100 utilities on
matters related to electricity industry restructuring including the
understanding of Participant Codes, preparing for performance based
regulation (PBR), and preparing and positioning for competitive market
opening.
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His professional background
includes senior operations, financial and treasury positions with Etobicoke
Hydro, Ontario Hydro and the City of London. His consulting work has covered
operational and due diligence reviews, market readiness assessments,
restructuring studies, business planning, shareholder option analysis,
financial modeling, rate harmonization analysis, and utility boundary
expansions.
As a former chief financial
officer of Etobicoke Hydro, Neill had responsibility for preparation of
forecasts, cost studies and rates for approval by Ontario Hydro.
As a utility accountant, Neill has followed developments in the
Ontario Energy Board’s Uniform System of Accounts, and was a member of the
Board’s Cost Allocation Working Group.
Neill’s special expertise is in the area of financial forecasting and
planning, and he has participated in assignments leading to utility mergers
and acquisitions.
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An energy sector
professional with 25 years’ experience, Paula fulfilled progressive
responsibilities in natural gas and electric utilities leading to a position
as manager of marketing at Toronto Hydro.
Within Toronto Hydro, she coordinated the utility’s first strategic
planning process, spearheaded a two-year program of corporate performance
improvement including benchmarking and process re-engineering, and was a
member of the team to address the re-organization issues associated with
amalgamation of the six former metropolitan Toronto electric utilities.
She also participated in development of a framework to evaluate new
business opportunities.
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In her consulting practice,
Paula has advised Ontario municipalities and utility clients considering
mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, joint ventures, and the formation of
service affiliates. Paula also
has an extensive regulatory practice. For utilities, she provides
independent studies such project feasibility, customer cost allocation and
affiliate transfer pricing reviews to support applications to regulators.
Her clients also include consumers, governments and other stakeholders
affected by the outcome of regulatory processes. She has provided oral
expert testimony or written evidence in several Canadian jurisdictions.
Paula has successfully
managed numerous concurrent projects, and is a skilled facilitator of
cross-functional project teams. She
is also a skilled modeler, with expertise in the use computer-based
analytical tools. Paula holds a CMA
designation and an MBA degree in Finance from the University of Calgary.
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