Insider Only

Shopify is launching new point-of-sale hardware across Canada, part of its efforts to bolster services for brick-and-mortar merchants as e-commerce growth slows down and the company looks for new sources of revenue.

Avivagen is reviewing “strategic alternatives” that could include selling the embattled Ottawa-based life sciences company as it struggles to gain market traction for its natural immune-boosting compound.

Founder and CEO Paul Vallée confirmed that he and former Tehama executives Rob White, Kevin Haaland and Mick Miralis led a successful $2.9-million bid to buy the firm’s assets under a court-supervised auction process.

Claridge Homes chief financial officer Neil Malhotra said higher mortgage rates, rising construction costs due to inflation and a new bylaw that hikes the fees developers pay to the city in lieu of parkland at highrise building sites have combined to make large-scale development projects a risky proposition.

Ross Meredith, the general manager of the Westin Ottawa and the Delta Ottawa City Centre hotels, said he thinks it will “probably take a few years” for the Ottawa tourism sector to see pre-COVID levels of overseas visitor spending.

The 42-year-old president of Calian’s IT and cyber solutions division announced this week he’s leaving his job at one of Ottawa’s most prominent publicly traded companies to become CEO of Jatom Systems Inc. (JSI).

Calian posted a net profit of $4.5 million, or 39 cents per diluted share, compared with $1.3 million, or 11 cents per diluted share, a year earlier.

True North Commercial REIT said in financial filings this week it has agreed to sell the 11-storey Narono Building at 360 Laurier Ave. W. to an unnamed buyer for about $17.5 million.

InterRent REIT says occupancy at the Slayte, the 11-storey rental complex at 473 Albert St. it is developing in conjunction with sister company CLV Group, is “quickly approaching” the 50 per cent mark “despite lease-up having mainly occurred during the weaker winter rental months.”