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B4 THE OAKVILLE BEAVER Wednesday, April 14, 1999 Business An Oakvitte Beaver Feature To advertise in this section call 845-3824 XLTEK opens new head office Saturday Photo by Peter McCusker Cambridge Clothes representative Dennis Wilson gets ready for a jog with one of the two robotic mannequins outside Art Lee's Men's Wear Ltd., which have been turning heads outside the Lakeshore Road store in down- Robotic mannequins m ake' Canadian debut at Art Lee's XLTEK, Oakville's high-tech medical technologies manufacturer, officially opens its new 45,000 sq. ft. head office this Saturday. The day's events will start at 5:15 p.m. with the ribbon cutting, fol­ lowed by plant tours, a dinner and finally presentations at 8 p.m. XLTEK is located at 2568 Bristol Circle. In August 1998 the company held a groundbreaking ceremony for the ambitious expansion after it outgrew its original facility on Portland Drive in Winston Park. The new facility is right across the street. XLTEK president and CEO John Mumford started his company more than 15 years ago on his parents' basement workbench. When the old site was first occupied, he had seven employees. This number has grown to 65 in Oakville and 20 more sales staff all over North America and the U.K. The new site will provide room for 150 new high technology posi­ tions to be created over the next year. XLTEK manufactures more than 500 medical instruments per month to medical communities in North America and around the world. The company is now developing the world's first fully vertically inte­ grated hospital information system, MAACS (Medical Acquisition, Archiving and Communication System). This is a complete medical net­ work to allow doctors to access up- to-date patient information from anywhere in the world. The stream­ lined information gathering process will dramatically increase efficien­ cies in the way doctors make diag­ noses and hospitals operate their business. In December, XLTEK was named one of Canada's 50 Best Private Companies in a program sponsored by Arthur Andersen, CIBC, National Post and Le Groupe Mallette Maheu. An official 50 Best Award will be presented to Mumford the evening of the official opening. XLTEK competes in the increas­ ingly sophisticated and competitive world of medical information tech­ nology - notably neuromuscular and neurophysiological applications. To meet these demands, XLTEK - a totally vertically integrated manu­ facturer - has focused on research and development, electronic layout and design, fully robotic surface mount technology assembly, 3-D mechanical manufacturing and advanced process control. By Amber Clarke SPECIAL TO THE BEAVER Cyber twins Clipper and Zipper have been stopping pedestrians and traffic in downtown Oakville. The robotic mannequins made their Canadian debut at Art Lee Men's Wear Ltd., 294 Lakeshore Rd. E last Thursday and will remain on display for the rest of this week. "When I heard about them I said, 'I don't care what I have to do, I have to get them'," said Art Lee Jr. "People walking by are just wowed and blown away. People want to know where we got them. Cars driving by are even stopping to take a closer look." The appearance of the cyber twins for a week at the Oakville store was arranged by Dennis Wilson, repre­ sentative for Hamilton-based Cambridge Clothes which owns the robotic mannequins. "They came in crates three-feet by three-feet, by 8-feet long, and each crate weighed 450 pounds with a mannequin inside," said Lee Jr. The robotic mannequins cost $20,000 apiece to manufacture. Clipper and Zipper are in demand. Art Lee's booked them 10 months in advance, and there is currently a one- year waiting list for the pair. "We just happened to luck out and get them first," added Lee Jr. Clipper and Zipper have traveled to trade shows around the United States, including shows in Los Vegas, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Their last gig was in New York City at Sacs Fifth Avenue, one of the largest men's wear stores in the United States. The robotic mannequins were put up last Thursday and will remain to entertain pedestrians and passing traffic for one week. They run 24- hours-a-day. Art Lee Men's Wear Limited is located at 294 Lakeshore Road West in downtown Oakville. Wrap accounts reduce risk of investment There was a time when nobody invested in mutual funds. Now, it seems as if investors mostly purchased funds. The reason behind the shift to mutual funds is under­ standable. It is also logical that many mutual funds investors have evolved from funds to "wrap accounts." Perhaps, we should start at the beginning. Years ago, a typical investor would purchase individ­ ual stocks and bonds. However, this direct way to invest can be complicated. There were too many choices and the investor needed help. Help came in the form of profession­ ally managed mutual funds. Most of the important investment decisions were delegated to a professional manager. The rational was that the professional was in a better position to make the cor­ rect investment choices rather than the investor who often could not sift through all of the information required to make an informed investment decision. Many financial advisors welcomed this evolu­ tion, because they could devote more of their time working with their clients. The returns on mutual funds have, for the most part, been good but the average investor is changing. As investors are aging, they are less interested in picking the "hot" mutual fund and more interest­ ed in preserving the wealth they have accumulated. Caution is important as the years to retirement are few and the ability to rebuild lost wealth declines. The new challenge is not to lose money. Some investors are migrating to wrap accounts, where a bundle of investments are wrapped together to form one account. For example, there are wrap accounts that consist of seven underlying mutual funds. You are not buying one investment but several and, therefore, your investment risk is lessened. Another example of wraps is pooled wrap accounts that consist of several dif­ ferent asset categories such as fixed income, small cap stocks and interna­ tional equities. By combining different asset categories with different manage­ ment styles also reduces investment risk. Wrap accounts started in the United States 25 years ago. They were intro­ duced into Canada earlier this decade. From January to September last year, (See 'Another' page B5) 2K Y2K Y2K Y2K Y2K Y2K Y2K Y2K Y2K W ill the Y2K Bug Impact You & Your Investments? Steve Lang's Y2K Protect and Profit Get a complete understanding of the Y2K computer problem and how it may affect your Mutual Funds and other investments: • Is the Millennium Bug real or hype? • Will Y2K impact the economy, capital markets? • How serious is Y2K for your investments? • Are the Mutual Fund Managers ready? • What should your Business do? • Questions to ask your Financial advisor • When should you take action? • What are the defensive strategies? • How to protect your RRSP & RRIF's Seating is Limited! 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