Disseminated on Behalf of: Pathfinder Ventures Inc.
- Pathfinder Ventures acquires, upgrades, and operates family-friendly RV resorts and campgrounds, and develops low-cost modular housing communities.
- With 2,920 private RV parks and campgrounds in Canada and 12,290 in the U.S., Pathfinder has a current pipeline of $300M in acquisition and consolidation targets.
- CMHC’s forecasted need for 3.5 million affordable housing units by 2030, gives Pathfinder a line of sight on $400M in modular housing community projects.
The Tin Can Tourists Club
In the earliest days of motorized campers, a “serviced” camp site consisted of nothing more than a flat patch of land to park on, an outhouse, and a well for drawing fresh water. Those intrepid RV pioneers of the 1920s were often derisively referred to as “Tin Can Tourists” by locals. This wasn’t due to their rickety trailers and conveyances, but for the canned food they almost exclusively ate, as refrigeration and fresh ingredients were elusive on America’s back roads.
Defiantly, the campers came to embrace the label and subsequently, the Tin Can Tourists Club was founded as the first vital support network and social community platform for RV enthusiasts and campers worldwide, and is still in existence today.
It’s safe to say the old-timers of that era would be astonished by the modern, amenity-rich, and award-winning RV parks and campgrounds now being developed and operated by Pathfinder Ventures Inc. (TSXV: RV). Their generous, full hookup sites with 50-amp electrical service would most assuredly cover off on any cold storage needs. And additional features such as swimming pools, saunas, cold plunges, powerful Wi-Fi, hot showers, washrooms, laundries, camp stores, equipment rentals, a dedicated resort app, community-oriented activities in all seasons, and an overall safe environment would similarly wow and amaze.
“There’s a lot of room for upgrades and improvements and the campers of today are dictating what they want, and we are building a very early-stage portfolio of cash flowing, premium RV park and modular home community properties currently valued $16 million, that we will continue to nurture and incubate for our investors.”
— Joe Bleackley, Founder & CEO, Pathfinder Ventures
By acquiring and upgrading private RV parks and campgrounds, and developing modular housing communities with resort-like amenities as well, Pathfinder is competitively positioning itself for multiples of growth in two steady and resilient asset classes, and building its value as a potential acquisition target for a large industry player.
Setting up camp
There are over 15,210 private RV parks and campgrounds in North America, 80 per cent of which have been traditionally owned by mom-and-pop operators. The sector is highly fragmented, and many properties are in dire need of extensive infrastructure and facilities upgrades, modernization of site and service offerings, transition to online booking, analytics and leading-edge social media marketing, and enhancement of business management systems overall.
Today, there are over 87.9 million campers in North America with RVs accounting for 46.8 per cent of all camping vehicles. RV ownership has increased by over 62 per cent in the last twenty years, approximately 11.2 million households own an RV, and the RV industry in the U.S. alone registers an overall economic impact of over US$140 billion.
Company founder and CEO Joe Bleackley, a seasoned entrepreneur, public company executive manager, and passionate RV enthusiast, established Pathfinder Ventures in 2019 based on his own personal experiences with his family in British Columbia parks and campgrounds.
“What honestly sparked the idea was my being so annoyed all the time at how hard it was to get a good camping reservation for the family,” says Bleackley, who is also a board director. “I felt the market needed more campsites, and better campsites, and this led me to go out and raise $8.6 million privately and purchase three locations in the province.”
As a small cap, early market entrant into this asset class, the company’s business model is to acquire and develop private RV parks and campgrounds, add value by upgrading and improving the facilities, and then market them to discriminating, repeat-business campers in all seasons.
In addition to operating these initial three RV resort properties which encompass sites for RVs and campers, and feature cabin, tent cabin, and RV rentals as well, Bleackley and his team are currently targeting two additional locations in B.C., four in Alberta, one more in Ontario, and have just announced an LOI to acquire 40 per cent interest in a company developing a modular home community in the Okanagan, with the potential for more than 90 modular homes.
“There’s not enough short and long-term rental options for all the RVs that are out there, the parks and campgrounds haven’t evolved as fast as the actual consumer RV industry has, and the rolling hotel rooms that are on the road now have outpaced what many of the parks can offer,” says Bleackley. “There’s a lot of room for upgrades and improvements and the campers of today are dictating what they want, and we are building a very early-stage portfolio of cash flowing, premium RV park and modular home community properties currently valued $16 million, that we will continue to nurture and incubate for our investors.”
It’s a classic industry consolidation model and the company’s approach allows park and campground owners, many of whom are elderly, have grown disinterested, and have limited cash that has held up park redevelopment, to sell 50 to 100 per cent of their business in exchange for cash, and/or shares in Pathfinder Ventures itself. Sellers can either retire, keep their current role, or transition to a flexible work arrangement. Pathfinder will also manage unowned sites as a pipeline to future acquisition as well.
Pathfinder’s experienced management team includes hands-on chief operating officer Stan Duckworth, who has been in the industry since 2002 and has seen a repeating pattern where people will buy an RV property thinking it will be a fun lifestyle to operate, or a retirement project, but then come to realize it is a lot more complicated, expensive, and time consuming than they realized and need to get out.
“There was a study done a number of years ago that showed the average owner-operator lasts in this industry for less than ten years, because you are always on,” says Duckworth. “Many couples purchase RV parks as kind of retirement jobs, not realizing you need competent staff and that it’s 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”
Duckworth also believes the current political turmoil and currency valuation will be beneficial for their business—that more Canadians will be staying home—and indicates bookings across their properties for April are 48 per cent higher than last year, with advance bookings up to 16 months out being up more than 10 per cent year-over-year as well.
Pathfinder also relies heavily on the advice and guidance of its board of directors, comprised of seasoned industry professionals with decades of collective experience in such disciplines as executive management, finance, real estate, utility systems, construction, civil engineering, infrastructure, and housing. Further strengthening this deep bench, the company has also just announced the addition of Ben Elzen, president of Cormode & Dickson to the board, a 40-year veteran of the Western Canada construction sector, with deep experience in residential and multi-family housing projects.
There’s no place like home
In 2024 the company launched its Pathfinder Lifestyle Communities division to invest in a second, yet related asset class, focused on acquiring and developing modular home communities as a way of offering sustainable and low-cost housing solutions—in a resort-style environment—to help address shortages. Modular manufacturing allows Pathfinder to develop sustainable communities more quickly and cost-effectively than traditional housing.
“The infrastructure is very similar, and the main difference is that you build a pad but in one asset class you rent it short term, and in the other asset class you put a home on it and it’s there for 100 years,” says Bleackley.
With a modular housing community as part of its Parksville RV Resort on Vancouver Island, and the recent announcement of the Okanagan acquisition, the company plans to continue to focus on developments in Western Canada, leveraging land-lease arrangements and then selling homes to consumers on a 99-year lease, offering the buyer extensive cost savings through the process.
“If we can lock-up that land and then sell a home for under $300,000 on a 99-year lease, that’s where the cost savings and affordability come from,” says Bleackley. “It’s hard to compete with that on freehold land.”
With a federal election campaign underway, all parties prioritizing making it easier for Canadians to get into the housing market, and the CMHC projecting the need for 3.5 million additional affordable housing units by 2030, Bleackley believes his company is in the right place at the right time to capitalize on the emerging land-lease modular community housing sector, which Bleackley adds could grow to become 60 to 70 per cent of Pathfinder’s overall business.
“Right now, we have line of sight on almost $400 million in modular housing developments and a pipeline in our system of $300 million in RV parks that could be purchased, so the growth trajectory is there,” says Bleackley. “The company has a steady run rate of approximately $3.5 million in gross revenues right now that are well-insulated from traditional market volatility and recession, our assets are backed by real estate, and we are trading at 0.7 PSR compared to some big REITs in the space trading at 6.0 or 7.0 PSR, making our value and story even more compelling.”
Bleackley additionally cites the success of Parkbridge Management LP, Canada’s leading operator, developer, and owner of more than 60 residential communities and 35 recreational RV resort communities across the country.
“Parkbridge started in 1998 with just two parks, listed on the TSX Venture Exchange, and about ten years later they were bought out by QuadReal Property Group for about $800 million,” says Bleackley. “So, we’ve got a great opportunity right now for investors to look at our company, to get exposure to real estate, and the RV park and modular home community space at a very early stage, ahead of a major rollup, growth and potential exit phase that we continue to drive towards.”
QuadReal Property Group is a global real estate company headquartered in Vancouver, BC, with assets under management of over $70 billion.
To learn more, visit Pathfinder Ventures’ website or follow the company on social media:
