The TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V) has released its 2016 TSX-Venture 50, which is its annual list of top performers on the resources-heavy, junior stock exchange that has 1,773 listed companies.
Despite the exchange being among the world’s worst performers, with a 24.42% drop in 2015, the companies that were on the Top 50 list saw share prices soar 72% in 2015.
The shares of these companies also enjoyed a liquid market, with a total of three billion shares trading during 2015.
“Obviously, it was a challenging year in 2015 for a lot of companies, especially for natural resource companies,” TSX-V president John McCoach told Business in Vancouver February 18.
“[Many companies] beyond these 50 companies also did really well at growing their business, creating wealth for shareholders, employing people, building and helping to grow their communities.”
The 50 companies are divided into five broad sub-sectors:
•oil and gas;
•mining;
•technology;
•clean technology and life sciences;
•diversified industries, which is essentially everything else.
Each sub-sector has 10 winners.
Instead of ranking the companies solely on share-price growth, market capitalization increase or trading volume, the TSX-V equally weighted those three categories.
All results were adjusted to account for dividends as well as stock consolidations or splits.
(Photo: John McCoach is president of the TSX-Venture exchange | submitted)
Education-technology firm Lingo Media Corp. (TSX-V: LM)’s 745% share-price gain was the highest among the TSX-V’s listed companies.
Toronto-based Lingo’s market capitalization gain, at 992%, was also No. 1 among listed companies on the exchange.
Shares of Richmond-based Vanc Pharmaceuticals Inc., however, were the most liquid, with 241,384,075 shares trading during the course of the year.
Here is the full TSX-Venture 50.
(Photo: Marcello Leone is a scion of the Leone family that founded Vancouver's iconic Leone fashion boutique | submitted)
Vancouver’s RYU Apparel Inc., which has an acronym that stands for Respect Your Universe, is the only retailer on the list.
Run by Marcello Leone, whose parents, Alberto and Maria Leone, founded the upscale fashion boutique Leone, RYU was in the development phase for most of last year.
It opened its only store, a 5,700-square-foot flagship location on West Fourth Avenue in November.
“This is just the beginning of what you’re going to see from us,” Leone told Business in Vancouver February 25.
He expects to open a second store in downtown Vancouver later in 2016, along with at least one more store, which could be in Vancouver but may also be in Ontario.
Those plans are scaled back from when BIV spoke with Leone in February 2015.
BIV has been running a series of stories about the TSX-Venture:
February 9, 2016: Major changes needed to save TSX Venture Exchange
February 13, 2016: Broken business model batters B.C. brokerage houses
February 23, 2016: Venture Exchange puts out welcome mat
Watch for upcoming stories contrasting the TSX-V with exchanges around the world and about biotechnology companies being some of the best performers on the exchange
