Here are the top reads on deals and financial services over the last week,
FINANCIAL SERVICES NEWS
Blame Ottawa for OSFI’s U-turn on mortgage stress tests: The PMO needs a reality check. Widening spread or not, if borrowers don’t qualify under the stress test, they have no business owning a home. (Rita Trichur)
CPP Investment Board posts 3.6 per cent rate of return for its third quarter: Net assets for the Toronto-based fund manager grew to $420.4 billion as of Dec. 31, up from $409.5 billion at the end of the previous quarter. (CP)
Inside the Bondfield investigation: Hundreds of thousands in cash flowed to account, records reveal: It happened over and over again: cash deposits flowing into a bank account linked to Bondfield Construction Co. Ltd., one of Ontario’s largest builders of public-sector projects.
Former Bondfield CEO fights monitor’s efforts to recover payments: The former chief executive officer of Bondfield Construction Co. Ltd is trying to derail the legal approach taken by a court-appointed monitor to recover millions of dollars it alleges were improperly diverted out of the company’s coffers. (Greg McArthur and Karen Howlett)
Power Corp. has restructured. Now, it just needs to reinvent itself: Minority shareholders in Power Financial Corp. voted to exchange their common shares for subordinated voting stock in parent Power Corp. of Canada. (Konrad Yakabuski)
Should a Canadian head the TMX next?: TMX, owner of the Toronto and Montreal exchanges, is now looking for a new boss after 61-year-old CEO Lou Eccleston took early retirement last month. And there’s every indication the board of this flagship company is going out of its way to scout for candidates who call Canada their home and native land. (Andrew Willis)
Regulators scale back proposed rules on use of alternative financial measures: Bowing to pressure, Canadian securities regulators have scaled back proposed rules designed to rein in companies that use alternative financial measures to make their results look better. (David Milstead)
DEALS NEWS: MERGERS, ACQUISITIONS, IPOs and FINANCINGS
Shoemaker Cole Haan makes U.S. IPO filing public: The IPO is part of a broader wave of U.S. retail listings in 2020 by companies including Casper Sleep, Madewell, and MyTheresa. (Reuters)
Waste giant GFL close to re-launch major IPO, hoping to raise $3-billion: Canadian waste management giant GFL Environmental Inc. is on the cusp of re-launching an initial public offering after its first attempt failed, with plans to raise $3-billion following encouraging meetings with potential investors. (Tim Kiladze)
Cineplex receives shareholder approval to be acquired by Cineworld: With the acquisition of Canada’s largest movie-theatre chain, Cineworld would have the largest movie-theatre chain in North America. (Susan Krashinsky Robertson)
Investors should take quiet satisfaction in Casper Sleep’s lacklustre market debut: The trendy maker of mattresses-in-a-box went public on the New York Stock Exchange last week at US$12 a share, briefly jumped as high as US$13.98, and has been falling ever since. On Tuesday, it closed at US$9.92. (Ian McGugan)
T-Mobile merger with Sprint wins approval as U.S. judge rejects antitrust concerns: During a two-week trial in December, T-Mobile and Sprint argued the merger will better equip the new company to compete with top players Verizon Communications Inc and AT&T Inc as the third-largest U.S. wireless carrier. (Reuters)
Private equity helped drive merger and acquisition growth in 2019: Over all, the number of M&A transactions in the public markets rose last year after a three-year dip, and, because of some multibillion-dollar transactions, the overall value jumped 85 per cent to $96-billion. (Jeffrey Jones)
SoftBank’s profit wiped out by losses at $100-billion Vision Fund: Quarterly profit at Softbank Group Corp was almost wiped out as the Japanese technology giant was hit for a second straight quarter by losses at its $100 billion Vision Fund. (Reuters)
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