Corporate governance - Vigil

Les États-Unis et le Mexique se sont donné jeudi 90 jours de plus pour conclure un accord commercial, évitant ainsi la hausse des droits de douane brandie par Donald Trump envers le principal partenaire commercial des États-Unis. Cette annonce faite par M. Trump et la présidente mexicaine Claudia Sheinbaum est intervenue après un entretien téléphonique entre les deux dirigeants jeudi matin. Elle fait suite à des mois de négociations ardues qui faisaient craindre le pire à de nombreux Mexicains. Le sursis maintient les droits de douane de 25 % sur tous les produits mexicains non couverts par l’Accord Canada–États-Unis–Mexique (ACEUM). Ce taux devait passer à 30 % le 1er août, date butoir fixée par M. Trump pour que les pays du monde entier concluent des accords ou s’exposent à des droits de douane pouvant atteindre 50 % – finalement, ceux-ci ne devraient entrer en vigueur que le 7 août pour de nombreux pays, a annoncé la Maison-Blanche en soirée jeudi.

Telus sépare son parc de tours cellulaires du reste de ses activités en créant une nouvelle entité autonome dans laquelle La Caisse acquiert une participation de 49,9 % au coût de 1,3 milliard de dollars. L’entité créée est baptisée Terrion et aura son siège social à Montréal. Terrion détiendra toutes les tours et antennes cellulaires de Telus au pays, c’est-à-dire un total de 3000 sites répartis dans quatre provinces : le Québec, l’Ontario, la Colombie-Britannique et l’Alberta. Telus sera actionnaire majoritaire de Terrion avec une participation de 50,1 %. Et aussi locataire. Une entente de huit ans, renouvelable, a été convenue pour la location de capacité dans les tours. L’opération dévoilée vendredi valorise Terrion à plus de 2,5 milliards de dollars et est l’aboutissement d’un processus compétitif lancé par Telus l’hiver dernier afin de trouver un partenaire intéressé à investir dans son réseau de tours de transmission.

Au moment où les minéraux critiques – essentiels à des créneaux comme l’énergie renouvelable, l’électronique et la défense – sont plus importants que jamais, le Québec dégringole dans un classement mondial identifiant les meilleurs endroits où investir. La province est écartée du top-5 et glisse au 22e rang du palmarès de l’Institut Fraser au terme d’un sondage mené par le groupe de réflexion auprès de décideurs de l’industrie. Il s’agit d’une glissade de 17 échelons comparativement à la performance de 2023. « C’est parmi les pires résultats de la province, souligne Eric Lemieux, analyste minier chez EBL Consultant. Je ne peux pas croire qu’avec la diversité de nos ressources, on va demeurer à ce niveau. »

Kering will propose a 20 million euros ($22.89 million) signing-on bonus for its new CEO Luca de Meo, adding to an annual fixed income of 2.2 million euros and a variable income of up to 6.6 million euros depending on performance, the company said in regulatory filings. Kering said this payment would compensate an estimated, similar amount of money lost by de Meo after he decided to leave Renault. "As a result, the board of directors has decided to award him a sign-on bonus of an equivalent amount," the company added in a document published ahead of its September shareholder meeting.

India's Tata Motors will buy Iveco in a deal valued at 3.8 billion euros ($4.36 billion), the companies said on Wednesday, after the Italian truckmaker separately agreed to sell its defence business to Leonardo. Boosting its commercial vehicles business, Tata will launch an all-cash tender offer for Iveco's shares, subject to the defence business sale, at 14.1 euros per share. Iveco, which also makes buses and engines, is controlled by Italy's Agnelli family through its investment company Exor, which currently owns a 27.1% stake in the Turin-based group, with 43.1% of voting rights. Exor has agreed to hand its stake in Iveco to Tata. "The offer would bring together two businesses with highly complementary product portfolios and capabilities and with substantially no overlap in their industrial and geographic footprints," Tata and Iveco said. The combined group would have a significant global presence, with sales of over 540,000 units per year and revenues of around 22 billion euros.

Canada’s Brookfield Wealth Solutions agreed to acquire Just Group for 2.4-billion pounds ($3.18-billion) as part of its expansion into the U.K. pension risk market, sending the British insurer’s shares to an 11-year high. Under the deal, Just Group shareholders will receive 220 pence per share, a 75% premium to the stock’s closing price on July 30, BWS said on Thursday. Just Group shares jumped 69% to 213 pence in early trading, its highest since March 2014. Britain’s pension insurance market has grown more competitive and lucrative over the years amid soaring demand for bulk annuities – insurance for corporate pension schemes – from companies looking to offload their pension risks.

MPLX LP said on Thursday it will acquire Northwind Midstream for $2.38 billion in cash to expand its sour gas gathering and processing footprint in the Permian Basin, as producers ramp up drilling in New Mexico. Northwind, backed by Five Point Infrastructure, operates in Lea County, New Mexico, with a network spanning more than 200 miles of pipeline and covering over 200,000 dedicated acres. The company currently treats 150 million cubic feet per day (MMcfpd) of sour gas and has two acid gas injection (AGI) wells in service, with a third permitted. AGI safely disposes of hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide, common sour gas byproducts, by injecting them deep underground to prevent harmful emissions. An ongoing expansion is expected to increase Northwind's treating capacity to 440 MMcfpd by the second half of 2026.

Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Wednesday that Canada’s negotiations with the United States might not conclude by Donald Trump’s Aug. 1 deadline as the president added new trade measures that could further hinder some Canadian businesses. Carney said talks have been complex, comprehensive and constructive. He also said they are ongoing and cover “a broad variety of topics.” “There are many areas for co-operation between Canada and the United States, including defence spending, security spending, investments, which is one of the reasons why we’re having these broader discussions,” Carney said at a news conference in Ottawa. Trump sent a letter to Carney threatening to impose 35 per cent tariffs if Canada doesn’t make a trade deal by Friday. The White House has said those duties would not apply to goods compliant with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade, better known as CUSMA.

La Chine a convoqué jeudi Nvidia pour discuter de « graves problèmes de sécurité » liés à ses puces d’intelligence artificielle (IA), le géant technologique américain se retrouvant au cœur des tensions commerciales entre Pékin et Washington. L’entreprise californienne est l’un des leaders mondiaux des semi-conducteurs. Mais les États-Unis limitent strictement les produits qu’elle est autorisée à exporter vers la Chine, au nom de la sécurité nationale. L’un des points sensibles concerne l’accès par les clients chinois à la puce « H20 », spécialisée dans l’intelligence artificielle et spécialement conçue pour pouvoir être vendue sur le marché chinois. Début juillet, Nvidia avait indiqué qu’il reprendrait les ventes en Chine de ces puces, après que les autorités américaines ont levé certaines restrictions à l’exportation vers le pays asiatique.

Australia’s long-standing “two strikes” system to curb executive pay was under the spotlight last week when shareholders lodged a protest vote against the remuneration of those who work at what has become known as “the Millionaires’ Factory”. Macquarie, the Sydney-based bank and asset manager, has for decades doled out huge sums to its top executives as a reward for delivering strong returns. The sharing of the bank’s profit pool for workers is regarded as fundamental to its success in generating value for Australian shareholders and pension funds that provide its capital. But even Macquarie has found that it is not immune to the growing tide of shareholder wrath down under. The country’s unique “strike” system — once seen as a pioneering method that other markets would copy — is intended to add sense of peril to annual meeting season. A strike occurs when more than 25 per cent of shareholders vote against a company’s remuneration proposal at an AGM.

At annual meetings for U.S. public corporations, reform proposals targeting governance issues like voting rights or political contributions - the "G" part of the ESG acronym - won 33.9% support on average for the 12 months ended June 30. That was close to their support rate from a year earlier and higher than in 2023, according to Morningstar. In contrast, average support for resolutions on environmental and social themes fell to 15.7%, about half the rate of three years ago. Out of 231 governance resolutions voted on at U.S. companies this year, 46 won the support of a majority of voted shares.

KKR and Capital Group will launch a fund that will give investors exposure to both private and public equity, the investment firms said on Wednesday, as appetite rises for diversification beyond traditional assets. The fund will be launched in early 2026 in the U.S., pending approval from regulators. It is structured as an interval fund, which allows investors to exit only during set windows, and will have low minimum investment thresholds. With high-profile companies remaining private for longer, investment firms are seeking new ways to meet rising demand for exposure to private markets. The potential for outsized returns from privately held companies has drawn interest from retail investors. These assets are also less sensitive to the economic swings that impact public markets, making them useful for diversification.

Hudson’s Bay has solidified its faith in a controversial deal to sell leases to a B.C. billionaire by asking a court to force landlords critical of her to let her move in. A motion filed by the collapsed department store late Tuesday asked the Ontario Superior Court to reassign 25 of its leases to Ruby Liu. Fifteen of the leases cover properties in Ontario, including Fairview Mall, Sherway Garden, Bayshore Shopping Centre and Bramalea City Centre. The remaining 10 are split evenly between Alberta and B.C. and include West Edmonton Mall, CF Market Mall and Guildford Town Centre. The group of leases will cost Liu about $69 million, minus a litany of fees she has to pay as a condition of taking them on, the latest documents show.

La situation politique américaine actuelle incite les Canadiens à se tourner vers les produits locaux. Pourtant, lorsqu’ils sortent leur portefeuille, ils optent souvent pour le prix le plus bas, même s’il n’est pas canadien. Leur caisse populaire a fait la même chose. Même si sa marque est régulièrement associée à la promotion de l’achat local, Desjardins a récemment préféré une société américaine à une entreprise canadienne pour l’achat des fournitures de bureau de ses employés. Depuis plus de 20 ans, le plus important employeur privé au Québec était le client de Hamster, un fournisseur établi à Laval, aussi connu sous le nom de Novexco. Le contrat, d’une valeur de plusieurs millions de dollars, serait passé aux mains d’un concurrent au début de l’été. Selon des informations obtenues par La Presse, il s’agirait de Staples Canada (Bureau en gros au Québec), la division canadienne de l’entreprise américaine Staples.

In May, Canada recorded the fewest job vacancies since 2017 as the pool of available jobs contracted from the month before. Job vacancies fell by 4.1 per cent in May month-over-month, Statistics Canada reported. On a year-over-year basis, job vacancies were down by 89,700 (-15.8 per cent). In total, there were 478,200 vacant posts in May, the fewest since October 2017. Meanwhile, there were 3.3 persons looking for work for every job vacancy in May 2025, up from 3.1 in April. That represents the largest gap since January 2017, excluding 2020 and 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, the department reported. The increase is due to a rise in the number of unemployed persons – who saw their numbers rise by 190,900, or 13.8 per cent, since last year – and a decrease in available jobs. Year over year, the number of available jobs dropped by 17.7 per cent nationally, excluding the territories.

Drugmaker AbbVie is in talks to acquire privately-held mental health therapeutics company Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals in a deal worth about $1 billion, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. The U.S. drugmaker has spent over $20 billion on acquisitions since 2023 as its flagship rheumatoid arthritis treatment, Humira, lost patent protection. Gilgamesh is a clinical-stage company developing therapies for psychiatric disorders, including depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. In May, AbbVie said it is partnering with Gilgamesh to develop therapies for psychiatric disorders, under which Gilgamesh could receive up to $1.95 billion in option fees and milestone payments. Deliberations over the acquisition are ongoing and could be delayed or fall apart, Bloomberg News reported.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Canada’s announcement it will recognize a Palestinian state “will make it very hard” for the U.S. to reach a trade agreement with its northern neighbour. Trump’s threat, posted in the early hours Thursday on his social media network, is the latest way he has sought to use his trade war to coerce countries on unrelated issues and is a swing from the ambivalence he has expressed about other countries making such a move. The Republican president said this week that he didn’t mind British Prime Minister Keir Starmer taking a position on the issue of formally recognizing Palestinian statehood. And last week he said that French President Emmanuel Macron’s similar move was “not going to change anything.”

The Surface Transportation Board said on Wednesday that Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern have formally filed a notice of intent to combine, triggering the U.S. regulatory review process for a proposed $85 billion merger between the two major railroads. The STB said the railroads intend to file their application by January 29. Once filed, the STB will consider the application and set a schedule for the merger review that could take a total of 12 to 18 months.

The United States and Pakistan reached a trade agreement expected to allow Washington to help develop Pakistan’s largely untapped oil reserves and lower tariffs for the South Asian country, officials from both nations said Thursday. Officials did not specify where the exploration would take place, but most of Pakistan’s reserves are believed to be in the insurgency-hit southwestern province of Balochistan, where separatists say the province’s natural resources are being exploited by the central government in Islamabad. “We have just concluded a deal with the country of Pakistan, whereby Pakistan and the United States will work together on developing their massive oil reserves,” U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “We are in the process of choosing the oil company that will lead this partnership,” Trump added. “Who knows, maybe they’ll be selling oil to India someday!”

Hudson’s Bay Co., and to donate the historic document to the Canadian Museum of History, pending court approval. The Gatineau-based museum announced on Wednesday that the Westons’ holding company, Wittington Investments Ltd., plans to acquire the charter “for immediate and permanent donation” to its collection. The move will ensure that the charter, which played a significant role in Canadian history, will remain in the country and accessible to the public – a concern that was raised by historians when news of the document being up for sale first became public. The Globe and Mail was first to report in April that the charter was listed among a collection of art and artifacts that Hudson’s Bay intended to auction off, according to a confidential information memorandum sent to potential bidders and obtained by The Globe.

La Corée du Sud a conclu mercredi un accord commercial in extremis avec les États-Unis qui limite à 15 % les surtaxes douanières sur la plupart de ses produits au lieu des 25 % que Donald Trump menaçait d’imposer, un soulagement relatif pour la quatrième économie d’Asie lourdement dépendante de ses exportations. « Nous sommes parvenus à un accord sur des droits de douane de 15 % pour la Corée du Sud », a annoncé le président américain sur son réseau Truth Social. Il a souligné que Séoul s’était engagé, dans le cadre de cet accord, à investir 350 milliards de dollars aux États-Unis, et d’acheter 100 milliards de gaz naturel liquéfié (GNL) américain et autres sources d’énergie au cours des 3,5 prochaines années.

British fintech Wise may have won shareholder approval for its move to a US listing this week, but the proxy advisers that supported it could end up as losers. A fight over the terms of the move should have been a chance for the under-fire advisers to show their worth, but instead they managed to miss key details or fuel confusion with mixed messages. Shortcomings among firms that advise shareholders on how to vote should worry investors more broadly. At issue was Wise’s attempt to bundle its plan to move with a decade-long extension of its dual-class shareholder structure. Taavet Hinrikus, Wise’s co-founder and third-largest investor, said the company had not been upfront about its plans and was betraying its commitment to “radical transparency”.

U.S. Steel said on Wednesday it has appointed three American directors to its board, more than a month after Nippon Steel closed its $14.9-billion acquisition of the company. Its board is now comprised of seven directors, four of whom are U.S. citizens, including three independent U.S. directors. Nippon had signed a national security agreement with the Trump administration in a bid to get the go-ahead for its acquisition of U.S. Steel. The agreement gave U.S. President Donald Trump a non-economic golden share and the authority to name a member to the board. The appointments include former AT&T CEO John Donovan, ex-Lockheed Martin chief Robert Stevens and Timothy Keating, who is currently the top boss at Keating Global.

Dye & Durham will review strategic alternatives to stabilize its finances and may even consider selling itself, it said on Tuesday, reaching a settlement that avoids a proxy fight with its second-largest investor, Plantro. The agreement comes less than a month after Plantro, which owns 11% of the Toronto-based Canadian legal software maker, said it was nominating three directors to the board who would push for a sale of the company, and calling for a special shareholders' meeting to vote on the nominees. Plantro had argued a sale was the only way to realize a control premium for shareholders and restore stability in the business. Dye & Durham has now agreed to add Plantro-nominee David Danziger to its board of directors. Danziger, who has expertise in audits, accounting, M&A and management consulting, will also chair a newly formed special committee to lead the review.