Is Brexit a boon for law firms?
Law firms in Britain and beyond are bracing for how their businesses might be upended in the wake of the country's vote to leave the European Union.
Some local firms set-up 24-hour hotlines to respond to a flood of inquiries from clients, while most mobilized a team of Brexit-focused lawyers who hosted webinars and wrote guides by sector about what the shocking "Leave" win could mean at home and abroad.
Truth is, no one really knows, not even the lawyers. The referendum result in favour of Britain quitting the 28-country bloc is not legally binding and the official process to exit the EU has not begun yet. Still, clients want guidance even if there are no answers.
"Everybody is wondering, what next?" David Fennell, chief executive officer at Gowling WLG (UK) LLP, said by phone. FULL STORY
German regulator rejects London headquarters for Deutsche Boerse-LSE
Germany's financial market regulator delivered a double blow to London on Tuesday, saying it could not host the headquarters of a planned European stock exchange giant after Britain leaves the EU, and nor could it remain a centre for trading in euros.
Felix Hufeld, who heads the Bafin regulator, is the most senior official to rule out publicly London as the head office of the merged Deutsche Boerse-London Stock Exchange group after Britons voted last week to leave the European Union.
"Without doubt ... it is hard to imagine that the most important exchange venue in the euro zone would be steered from a headquarters outside the EU," Hufeld told reporters. "There certainly has to be an adjustment here." FULL STORY
SunOpta hires Rothschild for strategic review
SunOpta Inc., a Canadian supplier of organic and specialty foods, has hired Rothschild Inc. to review its operations after an activist shareholder urged the company's board to explore a sale.
Rothschild, supported by legal advisers Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg, will evaluate a complete range of strategic and financial actions that could be undertaken to maximize shareholder value, SunOpta said in a statement on Monday.
The moves comes one month after Tourbillon Capital Partners, the largest shareholder with a 9.9-per-cent stake, sent a letter to SunOpta's board urging it to "immediately engage an independent investment bank to advise on a value maximization process – including the execution of a sales process." Tourbillon cited the company's poor share-price performance in the past two years and said the food supplier has a uniquely attractive business in the growing area of sourcing hard-to-find organic and non-genetically modified ingredients. FULL STORY
DAILY DEALS
Chemical company Canexus Corp. said Canada's antitrust regulator had approved its proposed buyout by rival Superior Plus Corp. This comes a day after the U.S. antitrust regulator filed a complaint to block the deal, saying the companies were two of the three manufacturers of a chemical needed to whiten wood pulp for paper production. FULL STORY
Kinder Morgan Inc said it had agreed to sell half its stake in an Ohio pipeline project to private equity firm Riverstone Investment Group LLC for an undisclosed amount. Riverstone will make an upfront cash payment to Kinder Morgan, including reimbursement for 50-per-cent share of its previous capital expenditure on the $500-million project, the pipeline company said on Tuesday. FULL STORY
Pavilion Financial Corp., a North American based employee-owned, investment services firm, announced that it plans to acquire Altius Holdings Ltd., the parent company of Altius Associates Ltd., a global private markets advisory and separate account management firm with offices in the UK, U.S. and Singapore. PRESS RELEASE
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Most executives at Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. took material pay cuts in fiscal 2016 after the firm posted its steepest annual loss since going public. Chief executive officer Dan Daviau made $2.3-million for the year that ended on March 31, 2016, according to a regulatory filing on Friday. The previous year, he pulled in $11.7-million as an investment banker, among the highest pay packets ever doled out to a Canaccord executive. FULL STORY
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