Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and Mark Barrenechea, President and CEO of OpenText™ (NASDAQ: OTEX, TSX: OTC), the global leader in Enterprise Information Management (EIM) and Canada’s largest software company, announced today an agreement to create 1,200 jobs across the province over the next seven years, nearly doubling the Company’s Canadian workforce.
“At OpenText, our employees are our most valuable assets, and our commitment today validates the strength of the technology talent pool in Ontario,”said Barrenechea. “We are an Ontario-grown global company andwe chose to invest here because of the highly educated workforce, our strong university partnerships in R&D,as well as the province’s robust and innovative start-up communities.”
OpenText and the Province of Ontario have signed a seven-year agreement that will see OpenText invest up to $2 billion in job creation. Under the terms of the agreement, OpenText will add up to 1,200 high tech jobs within the next seven years. The Province of Ontario will provide OpenTextup to $120 million in support of the initiative.
“I am thrilled that OpenText, a made-in-Ontario success story, decided to carry out this expansion here,” said Kathleen Wynne, Premier of Ontario. “We are proud to partner with OpenText to help create good jobs in Ontario and build a brighter future for our province.”
More than 30 percent of the jobs created will be in R&D and 10 percent will be for youth in the province, those 29 years old and under.
“Ontario’s technology sector has established a tremendous momentum that has positioned the province front-and-centre as business leaders around the world make decisions about where to invest and grow,” said Dr. Eric Hoskins, Minister of Economic Development, Trade and Employment. “OpenText’s decision to invest and create jobs here in Ontario is a vote of confidence in our tech sector and in the talented people who help it thrive and grow. This is about advanced technology, but it’s also about everyday people—ensuring families have stable employment and young people in school have prospects when they graduate.”
In addition to expanding OpenText’s footprint at its corporate headquarters in Waterloo and its Ottawa offices, the Company also announced the future site of its worldwide customer briefing centreand offices in the heart of downtownToronto.OpenText Ontario offices include worldwide headquarters in Waterloo, operations in Richmond Hill, worldwide customer briefing center in Toronto (to open late summer), Ottawa, Peterborough, and Kingston for research and development. Nation-wide, offices include Montreal and Calgary.
“This initiative is about immediate and long-term job creation at OpenText, enabling our Canadian employees to compete on the world stage,” said Barrenechea. “A strong OpenText means a stronger Ontario.”
OpenText is deeply committed to supporting technology innovation andhas undertaken a number of initiatives within the last six months intended to directly seed technology entrepreneurship and innovation in Canada:
· February 28, 2014: OpenText sponsors the Canadian Open Data Experience (CODE) national appathon;
· February 11, 2014: OpenText announces it is a founding partner in the Open Data Institute;
· January 21, 2014: OpenText announces it is the lead industry sponsor in a newly created $217 millionVCAP ‘fund of funds’ that will invest in high-potential venture capital fund managers across Canada to seed innovation, along with the federal and provincial governments;
· January 21, 2014: OpenText announces it expects to close in the next six months with its financial partners, a$100 million OpenText Enterprise Applications Venture Fund (OTEAF) to infuse funding directly into creative app development;
· November 2013: OpenText announced its own AppWorks developer platform to dramatically accelerate the time to market for enterprise-grade applications
