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Friday, February 12, 2010 5:37 PM EST
Mixed reviews for Shaw
Andrew Willis
Shaw Communications’ bid for the television assets at CanWest Global Communications looks like one of those strategic moves that splits the investor community.
Shaw got a thumbs down Friday from Desjardins Securities for a deal that will see the cable and satellite TV company take up to an 80 per cent voting interest in the owner of specialty TV networks and conventional broadcaster Global.
Link to this postFriday, February 12, 2010 5:15 PM EST
CIBC adds to London, Toronto desks
Boyd Erman
CIBC is adding to its team in London, bringing in new faces both on the fixed income and equities sides, as well as bulking up in Toronto.
In London, Jay Frazer joins as a director and institutional equity sales trader. Mr. Frazer had been at TD Securities in London, covering fundamental and hedge fund investors.
On the fixed income side, the new adds are:
--Chris Eagle, an executive director who previously worked at Morgan Stanley, RBS, and Unicredit.
--Peter Snasdell, also an ED, who worked at BNP and RBC.
--Helen Thomas, who previously worked at Merrill Lynch, among other places.
In Toronto, CIBC hired Camilo Gil and John Pryde away from TD Securities. The new directors will deepen CIBC's franchise in electronic and algorithmic trading.
Friday, February 12, 2010 5:13 PM EST
Of podiums and stocks
Andrew Willis
As the streets of Vancouver fill with revelers, everyone seems to have a take on how the Olympics may play in markets.
For example, BMO Nesbitt Burns economist Robert Kavcic reached for a games-related metaphor on Friday to explain that Canadian equities have “owned the podium” so far in 2010, with a modest 2.4 per cent decline ranking as the best performance among all major stock markets. The S&P 500 benchmark for U.S. equities is down 3.6 per cent.
Then Mr. Kavcic looked back at how Canada fared against other markets during the last winter games on home soil, Calgary, in 1988.
Friday, February 12, 2010 1:34 PM EST
What Shaw stands to gain from CanWest
Andrew Willis
As the media world digests Shaw Communications' shocking bid for CanWest Global Communications, there’s an emerging view that convergence is back.
Shaw executives are pitching this deal to analysts as part of a strategy to unite more media content behind a cable and planned wireless network. That strategy implies Shaw will hold on to CanWest’s line up of specialty television networks, rather than vend them to corporate cousin Corus Entertainment.
Friday, February 12, 2010 4:22 PM EST
All quiet on the M&A front
Jeff Gray
Where are all the big mergers and acquisitions that some were predicting for 2010? There is Kraft’s takeover of Cadbury and, worldwide, a quick pace in the energy sector.
But on Bay Street, lawyers who work on big deals say that despite New Year’s assurances from some that things were bound to pick up, business across the board remains slow.
The year is barely a month-and-a-half old, admittedly. But some say they are a little surprised not to see more action by now. Others say they have files open but nothing to announce, yet.
Shoppers from Asia may be looking for Canadian bargains, however. A report last month from Citigroup suggested 2010 would see a 17-per-cent increase in worldwide merger activity, with Asian firms sitting on cash leading the way.
Clearly, Canada’s natural resources will continue to be of interest. Bay Street law firms have been pushing into Calgary to get in on some of these deals.
According to Bloomberg, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP says it plans to double its staff of 25 in Calgary in anticipation of new business. Ogilvy Renault LLP also just opened a new office there.
Friday, February 12, 2010 12:55 PM EST
Sun Life still tweaking annuity products
Tara Perkins
Sun Life hasn’t finished tweaking its variable annuity products yet.
In the wake of 2008’s stock market plunge, life insurers have been changing their variable annuity products to reduce their risk. Variable annuities are akin to personal pension plans for individual investors, who give the insurer money that is invested on their behalf and who are guaranteed certain payments and benefits down the road.
Friday, February 12, 2010 11:32 AM EST
Winners and losers at CanWest
Andrew Willis
Today is a good day for TV viewers, an excellent day for Goldman Sachs and a handful of vulture funds, and a kick in the teeth for CTVglobemedia.
Shaw Communications spent an estimated $65-million Friday to effectively take control of broadcaster CanWest Communications, which filed for creditor protection back in October, after limping into the recession with far too much debt. CanWest advisor RBC Dominion Securities did a bang up job here of enticing offers at an auction that was expected to be sparsely attended.
Once regulators sign off, and the CRTC should embrace this deal, Canadians will be tuning into a national network and a stable of specialty channels backed by a deep-pocketed cable company, not a financial basket case. This has to be good news for the on-air product.
Friday, February 12, 2010 11:28 AM EST
Global energy, power M&A off to hot start
Boyd Erman
It's good to be an energy banker.
Energy was the story of 2009 for Canadian merger advisers, with most of the big deals done last year tied in some way to energy and power.
And it looks as if globally 2010 is going to be even better. So far this year, energy and power M&A has totalled $50.4-billion in announced deals, double last year's pace, according to the Thomson Reuters weekly Investment Banking Scorecard. About a fifth of that comes from the proposed acquisition this week of Allegheny Energy by First Energy Corp.
The U.S. was the hottest market, with about half of targets located there, including Allegheny.
Friday, February 12, 2010 7:54 AM EST
Things can only get better for Guloien
Tara Perkins
Manulife Financial Corp. chief executive Don Guloien is a glass-half-full kind of guy. The company has had its challenges, to say the least. But he’s looking forward to the year ahead.
“I’m very optimistic,” he says. “I feel good about the amount that we’ve hedged, I feel very good about the level of capital we have, and I feel very good about the prospects we have for both organic growth and acquisitions."
“That’s short of a guarantee,” he adds. “There’s obviously no certainty about what will happen in the economy, and it is worrying that so many people are still unemployed.”
Friday, February 12, 2010 6:27 AM EST
Mifsud leaves CI Capital Markets
Tara Perkins
Research analyst Gail Mifsud is parting ways with CI Capital Markets.
Ms. Mifsud, a longstanding real estate analyst who wrote the 2008 Canadian Real Estate Industry book, sent an email to her contacts on Thursday with the subject line “so long CI Capital Markets.”
Streetwise Contributors
Andrew Willis
Andrew Willis joined The Globe and Mail in September of 1995. His career has included stints at a number of publications, including The Financial Post, The Financial Times of Canada, Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal, and MacLean's magazine. He also did freelance writing for Investment Executive magazine. He appears on television for BNN TV and CBC Newsworld.
Andrew has co-written a book, The Bre-X Fraud, with business journalist Douglas Goold.
Read Streetwise Tuesday through Friday in the pages of Report on Business.
Boyd Erman
Boyd Erman is a long-time business journalist who has worked at Dow Jones, Bloomberg, and the National Post before joining the Globe and Mail. Over the years, his areas of coverage have included economics, monetary policy, debt markets and corporate finance.
In addition, he is a regular commentator and guest host on Business News Network.
Steve Ladurantaye
Steve Ladurantaye wrote about technology companies in Ottawa before reporting for the Peterborough Examiner and Kingston Whig-Standard, where he won a National Newspaper Award for explanatory journalism. After joining the Globe and Mail in 2007, his work has regularly appeared in Report On Business and Globe Investor Magazine.
Tara Perkins
Tara Perkins has been a business reporter since 2004, following a brief stint as overnight editor of globeandmail.com. She has been writing for the Globe's business section since the spring of 2007, covering the banking sector during the course of the financial crisis. Prior to that, she worked for the Toronto Star. Tara has a Bachelor of Journalism from Ryerson University and a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Guelph.
Jeff Gray
Jeff Gray joined The Globe in 1998. After stints as a reporter in sports and as a copy editor in news, he helped relaunch globeandmail.com as a breaking news website in 2000. He moved to The Globe's Toronto city hall bureau in 2004, writing a weekly column about traffic and public transit. He has also worked for the world desk of the BBC's news website in London and for CBC News. He covers legal affairs for The Report on Business.
Jacquie McNish
Jacquie McNish has been a business writer with The Globe and Mail since 1988. Prior to that she was a reporter with The Wall Street Journal.
During her time at The Globe and Mail, she has served as the paper's New York correspondent and won three National Newspaper Awards. She is the author of The Big Score: Robert Friedland and The Voisey's Bay Hustle and Wrong Way: The Fall of Conrad Black, for which she and co-author Sinclair Stewart won the National Business Book Award. She is a co-host of Market Morning on the Business News Network.
