Gold bullion coins are displayed at The Royal Mint in Llantrisant, Britain, on in March.Jason Alden/Bloomberg
Our roundup of Canadian small-caps of between $100-million and $2.5-billion in market capitalization making news and on the move today.
True North Commercial Real Estate Investment Trust (TNT.UN-T) is spending $53.6-million to buy three properties in the Greater Toronto Area, Ottawa and Victoria.
"With the acquisition of these properties, the proceeds from the November 2016 public unit offering have been deployed and, along with the capital raised during 2016, is working to maximize long-term unit value for our unitholders," said CEO Daniel Drimmer. "The acquisitions represent a significant accomplishment for our team, as we capitalized on these off-market opportunities and exercised patience to ensure we acquired properties consistent with our core strategies and at favourable cap rates."
He said the acquisitions are part of its plan to add properties with long-term leases and government and credit-rated tenants "in strategic urban markets."
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Home Capital Group Inc. (HCG-T) reported its financial position as of June 1.
It said aggregate available liquidity and credit capacity stood at approximately $1.11-billion compared to $1.10-billion the day before and $1.99-billion on May 1
Its Home Trust high-interest savings account deposit balances stood at $107.8-million versus $107.9-million the day before and $324.1-million on May 1.
Total GIC deposits stood at approximately $12.2-billion, similar to the day before and compared to $12.7-billion on May 1.
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Granite Real Estate Investment Trust (GRT.UN-T; GRP.U-N) rejected a report from Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (ISS) regarding the proxy contest for Granite board seats initiated by dissident unitholders FrontFour Capital and Sandpiper Group. ISS recommends unitholders vote for the proposal from the dissident unitholders.
"ISS has deviated significantly from its own published policies in its report and has simply accepted the dissidents' views in a number of instances, despite overwhelming facts or evidence to the contrary," Granite said in a release. "Its recommendation seems completely inconsistent with the fact that it has consistently awarded Granite the second highest possible governance quality score in its 10-point scale including in its current report for this year."
Granite chairman Wes Voorheis said, "we believe the ISS recommendation is wrong, lacking any substantive analysis and accepting the dissidents' views at face value."
He added that, "unitholders need not take Granite's word for it, nor should they take the dissidents' words at face value, as ISS appears to have largely done."
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Asanko Gold Inc. (AKG-T; AKG-N), the latest target of short-seller Muddy Waters, announced feasibility study results for its staged expansion at the Asanko Gold Mine in Ghana, West Africa.
The company said the study confirms the mine "is a large scale, long life quality asset with a viable and robust two-stage organic growth plan and strong cash generation capability."
The expansion includes two growth projects, Project 5 Million and Project 10 Million.
"Our growth plan has been designed to be fully flexible so that it can be advanced in modular components, according to cash flow generation, balance sheet strength, financing opportunities and market conditions," said CEO Peter Breese in a release.
Asanko has refuted the short-seller report, saying its mine is "a robust business" and the report "has no merit."
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Osisko Gold Royalties Ltd (OR-T) said on Monday it had agreed to buy a precious metals portfolio from U.S. private equity firm Orion Mine Finance Group for $1.13-billion to expand its diamond, gold and silver asset base.
Osisko will pay Orion $675-million in cash and the remaining $450-million in Osisko shares.
The portfolio consists of 74 royalties, streams and precious metals offtakes and will result in Osisko holding a total of 131 royalties and streams, the company said.
As a part of the deal, Osisko will be entitled to some production from the Renard diamond mine in Quebec, Brucejack gold and silver mine in British Columbia and the Mantos Blancos mine in Chile.
-Reuters
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The Hydropothecary Corp. (THCX-X), a Quebec-based marijuana producer, is expanding a voluntary recall of its dried cannabis products after the results of an investigation.
The company said the internal investigation was into the "low-level presence of myclobutanil" at its facility.
The company said myclobutanil is a pesticide approved for certain use in agriculture — such as almonds, strawberries, vegetables, soybeans and grape vines, — "but not for use on cannabis."
The company said the expanded recall will include 19 lots of dried medical cannabis grown before September 16, 2016 that were supplied between July 15, 2015 and March 24, 2017.
"These products have tested positive for trace amounts of myclobutanil between 0.01 parts per million and 0.13 parts per million."
The company said it conducted "an in-depth investigation" from May 1 to May 28, which included testing of 281 samples from all harvests, all production inputs, and the forensic sampling of equipment and key physical locations.
It said the investigation also showed that voluntary pesticide management systems implemented in September 2016 "have proven effective and that the contamination occurred during an earlier period."
"We are very sorry this occurred and we have been hard at work to ensure it never happens again," said Sébastien St-Louis, Co-founder and CEO.
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Cannabis Wheaton Income Corp. (CBW-X) says the previously announced private placement with Eight Capital and Canaccord Genuity Corp. has been terminated.
"Over the preceding week, the company has been the subject of multiple inflammatory false or misleading reports, published primarily online by persons seeking to discredit the company. Cannabis Wheaton as well the co-lead agents have been referenced and targeted about various matters, including the ownership of securities in Cannabis Wheaton by employees of the co-lead agents, despite such ownership being disclosed in the company's press release dated May 23," the company said.
CEO Chuck Rifici said termination "was not in any way related to due diligence conducted by the co-lead agents or investors' reception of the company's private placement."
He added that, "while we are disappointed at the timing of the termination of the engagement letter ... we are pleased at the enthusiastic response from the syndicate members and other leading firms seeking to take up the agency role in the private placement."
He said the company is "acting swiftly to finalize an agreement with a new broad syndicate of agents to facilitate an expeditious closing of the proposed private placement."
The company also said that, as a follow-up to its press release on May 31, "we wish to confirm in the strongest possible terms that no law enforcement or other regulatory agencies have contacted the company and that any allegations to the contrary being published online are entirely without merit."
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