1. Volume 45, Number 27 $1.50February 15-21, 2016www.slenterprise.com
OF NOTE
Trying to stop the bleeding
Amid warnings that fourth quarter
earnings will come in worse than
expected, Sears Holdings Corp.
will accelerate the closing of up to
50 Sears and Kmart stores previ-
ously tabbed for shuttering. That
includes the Kmart in North Logan
which has already begun its liqui-
dation sales. The Kmart in Woods
Cross closed last year.
Industry News Briefs
pages 6 & 8
Business Calendar
page 9
Real Estate Section
pages 18-19
Sheena Steedman
The Enterprise
Brice Wallace
The Enterprise
see SIC pg. 4
see GOED pg. 4
Sorenson Impact Center students visiting India worked with a company providing small-business
loans to the women shown here who produce fiber wares that are sold in design stores in the U.S.
and Europe, providing for a monthly income increase of 30 percent to 40 percent. SIC photo.
Contrary to popular perception, it’s
possible to be socially and environmentally
conscientious and still turn a significant
profit for investors. University of Utah
students at the Sorenson Impact Center are
proving just that.
Founded in 2013 by local entrepre-
neur, philanthropist and investor James
Lee Sorenson, the Sorenson Impact Center
(SIC) provides a hands-on education to
its students as it affords them the opportu-
nity to act as management consultants and
investment bankers to high-level investors
in order to promote global impact invest-
ing. The project was previously known as
the James Lee Sorenson Center for Global
Impact Investing.
Global impact investing is defined
as infusing capital into investment funds,
companies and organizations that are mak-
ing social and environmental impacts while
still maintaining the intention of making a
return on the investment.
Profits, social conscience fit
together U's Sorenson center
Oil prices, cash
shortage force oil
sands slowdown
A combination of low oil prices and
a lack of operating capital has forced the
Canadian company developing oil sands in
Utah to slow the construction of its opera-
tion in the Book Cliffs area southeast of Salt
Lake City. Calgary-based U.S. Oil Sands
Inc. also said that the low-price environ-
ment has caused two of its prime contractors
to cease operations in the state.
“The oil industry is facing one of the
most challenging environments it’s ever
seen and it is prudent for us to adjust our
construction plan accordingly,” said U.S.
Oil Sands CEO Cameron Todd. He said that
the cutbacks are designed for a fast restart
should conditions change. “The company’s
actions today help ensure U.S. Oil Sands
will be a future industry leader,” Todd’s
statement said.
The company said that the action comes
after a detailed review of its PR Spring
Phase 1 Project, which is approximately 85
percent complete. U.S. Oil Sands said that
costs to date were coming in below budget
on the $60 million project, which will be
the first commercial operation of its kind
in America when completed. The company
had previously described a natural citrus
extract process that it said is environmen-
tally friendly.
Opponents of the project, includ-
ing conservation groups, have challenged
the permits issued to U.S. Oil Sands.
Demonstrations at the site have led to arrests
of people attempting to stop construction.
Because U.S. Oil Sands is still in
the pre-production stage of development,
low oil prices do not impact the company
directly. However, it has “decided to reduce
the pace of field construction in order to
maintain working capital flexibility. As the
company has not completed its previous-
ly-announced $10 million royalty financ-
ing, U.S. Oil Sands will be pursuing other
financing options, including the possibility
of equity financing,” the release from the
company said.
Project work will continue at a reduced
level and is expected to focus on critical
path items and areas that will lead to the
most efficient restart of full construction
operations in the future. In spite of delays
and increased costs that will occur with
restart of full construction operations, U.S.
Oil Sands is still targeting completion within
the original $60 million approved budget.
U.S. Oil Sands owns bitumen leases
covering 32,005 acres of land in Utah’s
Uinta Basin.
Expansion to bring 115 jobs to
Brigham City's Honeyville Inc.
Honeyville will continue to grow in the
Beehive State.
The longtime food products company
has announced it will expand its manufac-
turing operations in northern Utah, adding
115 jobs over the next few years. The com-
pany, Honeyville Inc., announced the $23
million project last week after being ap-
proved for a tax credit of up to $520,261 by
the Governor’s Offi ce of Economic Devel-
opment (GOED) board.
The company was founded in 1951 by
Lowell Sherratt Sr., who bought a mill in
Parowan to crack grain for a feed company
in southern California. The company even-
tually moved to Honeyville in Box Elder
County and took the community name as
Honeyville Grain.
Beginning primarily with grain pro-
duction, Honeyville has since expanded
under the direction of Lowell Sherratt Jr.,
the founder’s son, and now specializes in
private label co-packing, mixing/blending,
grain milling, heat-treatment, wholesale in-
gredient distribution and consumer prod-
ucts. Last year, Lowell Sherratt Jr. retired

2. 4 · February 15-21, 2016 · The Enterprise - Utah's Business Journal
SIC
from page 1
GOED
from page 1
FindYour Greatness
Wecoveryourbusiness
We want to talk • 801-531-1234 • www.moreton.com
“Much of what we do is
investing into the pioneering gap
[with] early-stage companies,
both here in the U.S. and around
the world, who, rather than try
and figure out the next Uber or
Facebook — which are incred-
ibly successful investments —
they’re picking companies that
are solving really tough social
or environmental problems,” said
Patrick Mullen, executive direc-
tor at the center.
In a collaborative effort,
students from Brigham Young
University serve internships at
the Sorenson Impact Center.
The portfolio investment
manager at SIC, Caleb Jones,
said that the center has worked
on over $100 million in trans-
actions across several conti-
nents. Some of the notable suc-
cesses that Jones cited include
the Graduation Alliance, a Salt
Lake City education company
that works with high school
dropouts and provides them the
services needed to assist them
in obtaining their high school
diploma; BRCK, a technology
hardware solution expanding the
benefits of Internet connectiv-
ity and e-learning to peri-urban
and rural East Africa; and Kinara
Capital, a small business lender
in India that fosters economic
growth and job creation.
Jones also pointed to Simpa
Networks, a pay-as-you-go solar
home unit provider to peri-
urban and rural Indians; and
Rimidi Diabetes, a U.S.-based
diabetes management platform
through smart analytics and pre-
dictive algorithms that is increas-
ing wellness and health outcomes
for those suffering from diabe-
tes.
SIC measures the success of
its business collaborations based
on factors that include both the
scale of the global impact and
the financial return, according
to Jones. “Success is measured
by supporting scalable, sustain-
able solutions to social or envi-
ronmental problems through
business ventures. Our portfolio
continues to succeed both in rais-
ing additional capital from inves-
tors, scaling impact and growing
revenue. Impact measurement
is customized to the individual
investment opportunity.”
Jones points to some of the
favorable outcomes achieved at
SIC, which include an increased
income by an annual $2.2 mil-
lion across more than 30,000
jobs where income is less than
$2 per day, increased access to
financial services and financial
education for more than 11,000
people, the facilitation of $16.9
million in investments or lend-
ing for people who were previ-
ously without access to capital,
high school diplomas for 150
at-risk dropouts, access for than
15 million teachers and students
to free supplemental content for
improved learning outcomes and
access to electricity for 65,800
people in India.
“For us, we’re pretty deliber-
ate when thinking about what are
the outputs and outcomes we want
to see, and by output, that would
mean, specifically, we want to get
someone a high school diploma
or we want to get someone a loan
who needs to access capital or
we want to get someone access
to affordable housing, but even
further, tracking outcome,” said
Mullen. “What happens to that
individual because they have a
diploma? Or, what happens to
that individual because they got
this loan? Or, what happens to
that individual because they have
access to affordable housing? So
it really depends on the business,
but I think the correspondent of
how we measure success is look-
ing at that output vs. outcome
type of mentality.”
Students that participate in
the SIC program come from all
over campus, said Mullen. That
includes business school, public
policy school, engineering school
and others and range from under-
graduate students to Ph.D. candi-
dates.
The program is demanding,
according to Mullen. “We imple-
mented our own Wall Street-type
training program. We know the
students come in really fresh,
but do expect a lot as far as time
spent and engagement. Most stu-
dents end up working 20 hours
per week at the center,” he said.
Mullen is very proud that
there has been 100 percent job
placement for students coming
out of the SIC program, which
he says is much higher than their
peers at local universities. In fact,
the students are even standing out
among Ivy League schools.
In a recent MBA competi-
tion called MIINT (MBA Impact
Investing Network & Training) at
the Wharton School of Business
in Philadelphia, SIC was the only
program that brought undergrad-
uate students to compete against
MBA students from schools such
as Yale, Duke and the University
of Chicago.
After one of the undergrad-
uates from SIC gave his pre-
sentation, he was approached
by a recruiter from the Heron
Foundation and told that his pre-
sentation was the best she’d ever
seen and offered him a job as an
associate at an MBA level. He
remarked that he didn’t have an
MBA and, baffled, she said, “I
don’t care, I’m still going to hire
you.” According to Mullen, his
student did accept the job of his
dreams at 20 years of age and
now lives New York City.
Such is the history of a very
successful program.
as CEO after more than 40 years
in the position. Food industry vet-
eran and son-in-law Ed Hemphill
succeeded him.
Honeyville is a privately
held, family-owned and operated
manufacturer and distributor of
more than 3,000 dry food ingre-
dients. Its customers include mid-
and major grocers, club stores
and health food retailers; cereal
and pet food manufacturers; bak-
ery and food manufacturers; plus
those focused on e-commerce
food and health and emergency
preparedness.
The company is based in
Brigham City and has a grain
mill in Honeyville; retail stores
in Brigham City and Salt Lake
City; and a warehouse and distri-
bution facility near the Salt Lake
City airport that was established
in 1981. In addition to Utah, the
company has operations in Cali-
fornia, Arizona and Ohio.
The company’s mill near
Brigham City will continue oper-
ating, with the expansion occur-
ring elsewhere in northern Utah.
Ogden has offered the company a
local incentive.
In briefing the GOED board
during its meeting last week,
board member Peter Mouskon-
dis described the Sherratts as “an
icon family in this community.”
“It’s really important, I think,
to offer something and to continue
to push for family business lega-
cies to continue to grow in Utah,
and this is exciting,” Mouskondis
said. While the company plans to
grow in other states as well, “it’s
nice to see that they are still going
to be grounded here,” he added.
The expansion project’s jobs
are expected to result in total new
wages of $36 million over an
eight-year period and new state
tax revenues of $2.6 million dur-
ing that time.
Johnny Ferry, the company’s
vice president of customer devel-
opment, suggested that the project
could help attract other companies
to the area.
“Honeyville’s customer base
includes some of the largest re-
tailers and manufacturers in the
world, and those people will be
coming and trekking through Utah
to come to our facility and see the
products we manufacture for them
as a private label,” he told the
board.
“And they’ll drive down the
road and look to their left and their
right and they’ll see the resourc-
es and they’ll see the people and
they’ll see the positive business
atmosphere that we have here.
And they will say, ‘Well, may-
be we should be here in Utah, as
well. Maybe Utah is a pretty good
state.’ And we’ll turn to them and
we’ll say, ‘Utah is a great state.’”
General Growth Properties has sold the Provo Towne Centre
to California-based Brixton Capital. As part of the agreement the
80-store shopping and entertainment property will be managed
by Jones Lang LaSalle, a Chicago-based commercial real estate
firm with an office in Salt Lake City.
The 802,000-square-foot enclosed mall is located just south
of downtown Provo. Jones Lange LaSalle senior vice president
Cynthia Murphy will lead the management for the mall.
Headquartered in San Diego, Brixton Capital is the private
investment vehicle of BruttenGlobal, an international family
office that owns and manages an array of holdings valued at
more than $3.3 billion across numerous industries, including
real estate, banking, professional sports, aviation, media and
consumer products.
“Provo Towne Centre is located in one of the fastest-
growing cities in Utah that’s home to some of the world’s most
successful tech companies, and in close proximity to Brigham
Young and Utah Valley universities,” said Murphy. “The trade
area brings the buying power of more than 60,000 students to the
mall, making it a top destination for retailers looking to expand
in the region.”
Built in 1998, the mall anchored by national retailers and
features a food court, restaurants and movie theaters.
Provo mall changes hands