4Thoughts: Welcome to our platform

Taking Investor Education to the next level

Hello, new readers!  Welcome to 4Front 4Thoughts, a newsletter we have started to complement our activities at 4Front Advisory Inc.  We founded 4Front with the intent to help new and emerging businesses across Canada with their corporate planning, financial analysis, capital markets strategy and investor relations activities. 

The partners at 4Front bring a combined 60+ years of experience to our clients, ranging from sell-side equity research, sales and trading, to buyside institutional investment management, complemented by corporate experience in planning, strategy and investor relations.

Does the world need another blog?

Probably not, admittedly, but we aim to shed a different light on our subjects.  Amongst the 4Partners at 4Front, a good portion of our combined experience is within the oil and gas sector.  As we have each moved onto other career opportunities over the past few years, a few things have become apparent, with a few surprising trends

1. Calgary and Alberta are a hotbed of activity for growth companies in sectors other than oil & gas.  Three of the four of the partners at 4Front live in Calgary with most of our professional experience in energy.  It has been eye-opening to network with new companies and management teams and get to know more about some great businesses right in our backyard.  It was interesting to step out of the oil and gas bubble to expand our horizons in order to find new business opportunities for 4Front to lend our expertise. 

2. Many emerging companies do not get the capital markets support that oil and gas companies are accustomed to.  Many management teams do not attract the attention from some of the typical brokers in terms of investment banking or capital markets advice.  This is often because companies are too small, private, potentially with unproven management or in unappreciated business sectors.  One of our key objectives at 4Front is to help companies navigate all aspects of capital markets to provide them with improved access to capital and ultimately success with their business plan. 

3. Investors seem less informed on the nuances and technical merits of some of these companies.  Whether companies are public or private, often there is limited information on certain aspects of companies’ business plans, strategy, opportunities and challenges.  Perhaps some companies are in tech sectors with highly scientific intellectual property, or market cap is too low to warrant a deep dive in understanding the company by potential investors.  We see an opportunity to help these companies get their message out to the market.

4. Investors are using alternative sources to find information.  Traditionally, institutional investors received their company information via research reports, sales notes, and marketing meetings set up via their broker of choice.  Retail investors rarely had access to the professional quality insights and analysis that professional money managers enjoyed.  Over recent years, however, retail investors have been increasingly important and relevant with detailed analysis and shared insight available online through platforms like Twitter, Substack, Seeking Alpha and a host of others.  Given our Institutional background at 4Front, we aim to use 4Thoughts as a platform for investor education that bridges the old and the new.

What you can expect from 4Thoughts

In our advisory business we strive to assist companies with their strategy, financial analysis and scenario planning and investor messaging as well as being a facilitator with capital markets providers.  In short, we aim to ensure companies are fine-tuned in terms of financial forecasts and business plan with a clear, concise investment thesis for potential and current investors.  With 4Thoughts, we aim to provide ongoing commentary to provide readers updates as things evolve over time.

Our goal for the 4Thoughts blog is centered on the following tenets:

• Investor Education:  Press releases and corporate presentations typically only scratch the surface with regards to a company’s strategy and opportunity.  Usually, the incremental color commentary only comes with direct meetings with management.  We intend to use this Substack to dive deeper into company reports, provide thought provoking analysis and provide readers with our views on items that are misunderstood (good and bad) by investors. 

• Macro Commentary:  A company’s ability to deliver on its strategy is frequently dictated by macroeconomic trends with the business sector.  4Thought will delve into broader trends to which we believe readers should allocate greater attention.

• Management Access:   We plan on interacting with management teams across multiple platforms ranging from written interviews, video conferences and in-person meetings.  We intend to ask questions that others won’t, while providing management teams the opportunity to address key catalysts and investor feedback (good and bad).

• Bite-sized analysis:  Research analysts (and our partner Chris has been guilty!) traditionally launch coverage on a mega research report with 50+ pages of detailed verbiage and technical charts.  Frankly, it is too much to consume in one sitting and effectively retain information.  4Thoughts posts will be smaller, easier digested tidbits on items we think are relevant for investors.  Read our posts over a coffee in the morning, not a 7-course dinner.

• Context:   While company analysis, macro-overviews and management commentary all have their own individual merit, what we strive to do is provide the context in which to understand what factors matter most and why.

The Fine Print

It is important for investors to understand that 4Thoughts is a platform for us to facilitate our ability to provide detailed analysis to our clients.  Our clients are the companies that pay us for our capital markets strategy.  To be very clear, we are being compensated by most companies discussed on this site.  Our intent is to provide insightful analysis and commentary of the companies’ prospects, while not being a promoter or pump and dump shop.  We want to maintain the integrity and reputation that we believe we have built over the course of our careers.

Our focus will be more about providing color commentary than financial forecasts and analysis (there are analysts for that).  We want to be a conduit between the company and potential investors to provide a summary of key topics for our clients that is searchable and easily referenced in the future as new investors or readers come to the platform. 

·While we don’t provide investment advice, we are looking to educate investors about opportunities they most often wouldn’t have access to.  This is a starting place for investors to explore opportunities to diversify and expand their overall market knowledge.

With that, thank you for showing your interest.  Please reach out to any of us with feedback, we will take this newsletter where the market demand takes us!  We want to be fresh, engaging and interactive.  Please subscribe for future updates and feel free to pass this along to anyone you think may have interest.

Chat soon,

4Front Advisory Partners and Co-Founders

Chris Feltin Glenn Paradis Shane Dungey Jon Varley