by Mark McQueen, Wellington Financial LP – originally posted on July 8, 2010

For fear that the Business Development Bank of Canada hasn’t tasked their management consulting team at McKinsey with stakeholder meetings in relation to the “BDC Venture Capital” strategic review currently underway (see prior post “Playing catch-up” July 7-10), David Crow asked me to share my simple suggestion with all of you.

I warn you: the idea isn’t all that novel. HSBC did it when they recenly spun out their six global private equity arms to the local management team. TD Bank did it when they handed TD Capital Private Equity Partners to the Toronto-based group that now goes by NorthLeaf Capital Partners. Quebec’s FTQ did it in 2008 with their 35 early stage venture capital investments. It’s not very complicated.

If BDC CEO Jean-Rene Halde is concerned about the 5% of his total assets (yes, sadly just 5%) that are tied up in money-losing VC deals, my suggestion is simple, and it works for everyone: Spin out the BDC Venture Capital arm to its management team.

Overnight, BDC VC would become Canada’s…

(please check out full post here)

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