EagleView: 2015 to be a growth year
When he was a kid, Chris Barrow's father told him that people go through life trading youth for wisdom.
That notion is some comfort today, reminding the CEO of EagleView Technology Corp. that it got something out of what in some ways was a wasted 2014. One year ago today EagleView and Verisk Analytics Inc. announced they had worked out a $650 million acquisition deal, with risk data and services firm Verisk buying EagleView, which is based in Henrietta and Washington state.
That came to an end 11 months later, with the companies just before Christmas saying the deal was off due to opposition from the Federal Trade Commission, which said it was worried about Verisk ending up a virtual monopoly in rooftop measurements for the insurance industry.
"We learned some things," Barrow said this week in an interview with the Democrat and Chronicle. "We're much more focused about what we need to do."
For EagleView's Henrietta-based Pictometry International subsidiary, that includes finishing construction this summer on a $13.7 million headquarters on Methodist Hill Drive. The 72,000-square-foot building — going up with about $1.1 million in help in the form of County of Monroe Industrial Development Agency tax breaks — will get all Pictometry employees together again under one roof.
For EagleView overall, which specializes in aerial images and various products based on those photos, such as reports used for property assessments, that "need to do" list for 2015 includes a bigger focus on growing in a variety of new areas for the company, as well as some hiring, Barrow said.
"Our plan today is were going to continue growing the business, continue growing a great company and expand," Barrow said. "We're just going to keep running the business."
On the Verisk deal and its falling apart:
Chris Barrow: When an offer gets made on your business, you have to consider it. We weren't really out to sell the business, we were just trying to create a phenomenal, exciting business. In the last year, we went through an exhaustive process with the FTC where they were scrutinizing the transaction. The FTC informed us they were going to challenge the deal, and we decided instead of trying to appeal that challenge, we would unwind the merger and go our separate ways.
On EagleView's growth plans for 2015:
CB: We're certainly very much focused on top-line growth this year. Our focus is to really execute well on some of the new initiatives we've been rolling out the last couple years. We're making some great traction on the solar side of business by producing products that address the solar side. We're making traction as we grow the infrastructure side of business, collecting data for oil and gas line and electrical lines. That's really our focus — to grow on our core, which is county governments and contractors and construction — and expand into these new markets.
On Pictometry's role in that growth:
CB: If you think about the imagery we provide and acquire, we grow amazing grapes. Some people want the grapes. Others want us to take the grapes and turn them into product. Going forward we see that more of a growth into a wine business, where you focus on higher-value products that provide more benefit for our customers. Keep moving up that value chain.
On the imagery side, it's always been about collecting more imagery and higher quality — meaning better resolution — imagery, faster and delivering that imagery in meaningful ways within certain products or solution sets. That mission has not changed for Pictometry. We're simply doing more of it. We see a tremendous amount of growth on that side of the business.
On Pictometry's new building:
CB: It's big enough. It'll allow us to house all of Pictometry in one facility, which is great, but it also gives us some space to grow. If needed we could probably double the size of the staff. We built that with the intention of growing the business. We're certainly going to be adding headcount. We're still formulating some of those plans. Based on some of the aggressive growth plans and new markets ... we plan on expanding our workforce in Rochester.
MDANEMAN@DemocratandChronicle.com
EagleView Technology Corp.
Headquarters: Town Centre Drive, Henrietta, and suburban Seattle.
CEO: Chris Barrow
Employees: 420, including roughly 200 locally.
Origin: In 2013 with the merger of Henrietta aerial imagery company Pictometry International Corp. and 3D modeling and measuring software company EagleView Technologies.