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by Stockwatch Business Reporter

The TSX Venture Exchange jumped 10.33 points to 711.37 Wednesday. Eric Boehnke's halted NEX shell, Trenchant Capital Corp. (TCC), plans to become a diversified venture capital firm. For its first investment, it will lend between $15-million and $20-million, which so far it does not have, to Russell Negus and Jean-Marc Bougie's investment and advisory firm, Hillcore Group Ltd. The loan will have a five-year term and a 15-per-cent interest rate. Grand plans aside, Trenchant is at least off to a reasonable start -- by not calling itself a merchant bank.

Mr. Negus, Hillcore's executive chairman, is a real estate developer in Vancouver. Mr. Bougie, Hillcore's chief executive officer, was a managing director of RBC Capital Markets in Montreal for 15 years. According to Hillcore, it acquired $710-million worth of assets in 2015, but what it does not tell us is whether it has paid for them, and if somehow or other it did, with what. In recent months, its focus has been on two of its portfolio companies: Vancouver bioplastic manufacturer Solegear Bioplastic Technologies Inc. (SGB: $0.16) and private Edmonton steelmaker Waiward Steel LP.

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