The Bay Street sign is shown in the heart of Toronto’s financial district.MARK BLINCH/Reuters
Home Capital launches board shakeup in 'governance renewal'
Mortgage lender Home Capital Group Inc. is taking the first step to shake up its board of directors, adding a new leader with experience in restructuring financial firms as it seeks to stabilize its business.
Home Capital said Friday that Alan Hibben would become a board member, replacing the company's retiring founder Gerald Soloway. This change paves the way for the addition of more new board members, aiming to boost Home Capital's credibility in the market at a time when it has had a run on deposits. The appointment will also help form a team that can nimbly make decisions about Home Capital's future, either as an independent business or in a sale process. Story
Home Capital faces looming $325-million debt deadline
Home Capital Group Inc. is facing a major cash demand in coming weeks as $325-million of institutional deposit notes mature, adding more urgency to the mortgage lender's need to secure long-term financing.
The company's Home Trust subsidiary has three outstanding issues of deposit notes with a total value of $800-million, which have been trading furiously over the past week at a significant discount to their face value.
One of the notes matures in less than three weeks, on May 24, requiring Home Trust to repay holders a total of $325-million. The other two issues of notes, with a total value of $475-million, mature in March and December, 2018, and are a less pressing cash problem. Story
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Canadian investors flock to Real Matters IPO
Real Matters Inc. continues to be a made-in-Canada success story with a made-in-Canada fan base. After a successful road show, will it get peace, order and a good investor reception when it goes public?
The online mortgage-services firm, which is set to begin trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange next Friday at a $1.17-billion valuation after pricing its shares this week at $13 each, has closed its order book after being seven times oversubscribed. Interestingly, demand for the roughly $157-million offering – $125-million from the treasury and the balance from existing investors – was overwhelmingly Canadian, with institutional investors across the country accounting for about 85 per cent of demand, and the rest split between U.S. and European investors, sources familiar with the deal said.
The deal, co-led by BMO Nesbitt Burns, INFOR Financial Group and Merrill Lynch, was already well oversubscribed at home before the road show hit Boston and New York this week. Story
Silicon Valley Bank sets sights on Canada
A leading U.S. bank catering to technology companies and venture capitalists is putting down roots in Canada, hoping to be a lender of choice for the next wave of Canadian innovators.
Silicon Valley Bank, based in Santa Clara, Calif., filed an application Thursday with Canada's banking regulator for a license to open a lending branch in Toronto.
Its push into Canada comes just as the federal government has unveiled an innovation-friendly budget pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into venture capital investments, clean technology firms and the flourishing artificial intelligence (AI) sector.
In early 2016, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pitched Canada as a hub for technological innovation to billionaires and global leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Story
Callidus revises reporting after OSC review
Lending firm Callidus Capital Corp. said on Thursday it is changing how it reports financial results in response to an Ontario Securities Commission review, as it fights allegations from a former employee that there have been "multiple complaints" about how it portrays its $1-billion loan portfolio.
Toronto-based Callidus, led by well-known fund manager Newton Glassman, lends to businesses that cannot borrow from banks and other traditional lenders. The company reported a first-quarter loss Thursday of $3.5-million on revenues of $36.4-million. As part of that report, Callidus stated it's revising how it discloses certain financial measures to investors, "in connection with an Ontario Securities Commission continuous disclosure review." Story
SNC-Lavalin seeks continued Caisse backing for future acquisitions
SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. wants to tap the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec again to help finance future acquisitions as it tries to complete the purchase of British-based WS Atkins PLC, its biggest ever takeover.
The Montreal-based engineering firm confirmed that its partnership deal with the Caisse on the Atkins bid was not necessarily a one-time event and that it would seek to use the pension-fund manager's considerable financial firepower to accelerate its growth. The Caisse had $270-billion in assets under management at the end of 2016. It is SNC's largest shareholder.
"I'd love to do lots of stuff like this with [the Caisse]," SNC-Lavalin chief executive officer Neil Bruce told reporters following the company's annual shareholders meeting on Thursday. "It could certainly enhance and speed up our continued global evolution so we'll continue to talk to them." Story
Alignvest launches $250-million IPO for new SPAC
The SPAC is back.
Alignvest Management Corp., the Toronto-based operator of a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, that successfully took over a private U.S. telecom company in 2016, launched a $250-million initial public offering recently for the next generation of SPAC.
The new company is called Alignvest Acquisition II Corp. and like a new-and-improved version of a cellphone that comes with the hottest new gizmos, this SPAC features a financial innovation meant to give the SPAC more firepower for staging a takeover. Story