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Amazon.com Inc. has reached a deal to buy San Francisco-based Bee, a startup making an artificial intelligence-enabled bracelet to listen in on and transcribe conversations. Bee’s US$50 wristband can analyze and distil what it records to make summaries, to-do lists or other tasks. Amazon confirmed the deal on Tuesday following a post on LinkedIn by Bee CEO and co-founder Maria de Lourdes Zollo. The deal has not yet closed and Amazon declined to provide terms. A spokesperson said Amazon will work with Bee to give users more control over the devices, which are set to automatically transcribe audio but can be muted.
A coal company that was suing Alberta as part of a $16-billion lawsuit has reached a $142.8-million settlement over the government’s flip-flop on coal policy. Atrum Coal Ltd. has agreed to drop its lawsuit and surrender its coal leases back to the government in exchange for the cash, according to a notice on the company’s website. The province paid Atrum $136.8-million earlier this month, but will retain $6-million of the full settlement amount until reclamation works on the site are complete. Atrum said in the notice it would distribute the proceeds of the settlement to its shareholders, minus obligations such as taxes, director compensation, legal fees and amounts needed to cover reclamation works. Details of those amounts and timelines will be released at a later date.
Seven & i soutient qu’Alimentation Couche-Tard a fait preuve d’une méconnaissance regrettable de la culture japonaise en menant son projet d’acquisition de l’exploitant des dépanneurs 7-Eleven. L’entreprise reproche également à Couche-Tard de ne pas avoir pris au sérieux les préoccupations antitrust dès le départ. « Couche-Tard n’a jamais dérogé à son affirmation selon laquelle la voie à suivre pour obtenir l’approbation antitrust était claire. Mais cela ne la rend pas pour autant vraie », souligne le comité spécial du conseil d’administration de Seven & i dans une missive publiée mardi. En réalité, est-il souligné, cette transaction ne pouvait être finalisée sans une cession très importante de dépanneurs aux États-Unis.
Eastlink et Cogeco ont déposé une contestation judiciaire devant la Cour d’appel fédérale concernant une décision du CRTC datée du 20 juin 2025 sur l’accès de gros à internet. Selon les deux entreprises, la décision du CRTC est entachée d’erreurs juridiques fondamentales, car elle n’aurait pas correctement appliqué la directive du Cabinet fédéral de 2023 visant à promouvoir la concurrence. Elles soutiennent que la décision du CRTC favorise les « trois grands » (Bell, Rogers, Telus) au détriment des concurrents plus petits, ce qui menace leur viabilité et décourage l’investissement dans les infrastructures de réseau.
Alors que la guerre commerciale s’intensifie avec Donald Trump et que la date butoir du 1er août arrive à grands pas, le premier ministre Mark Carney est catégorique : « le gouvernement du Canada n’acceptera pas un mauvais accord » avec les États-Unis. « Un bon accord est quelque chose qui préserve, renforce et stabilise nos relations avec les États-Unis autant que possible. Un bon accord, c’en est aussi un qui ne nous lie pas les mains », a-t-il expliqué en point de presse, mardi en Ontario, après sa rencontre avec ses homologues provinciaux et territoriaux. Dans une lettre adressée au premier ministre canadien, le 10 juillet, M. Trump a menacé d’imposer des droits de douane de 35 % sur les produits canadiens le 1er août, fixant ainsi une nouvelle date limite pour les négociations commerciales qui auraient dû être terminées à l’heure actuelle.
Donald Trump a annoncé la conclusion d’un accord commercial « énorme » avec le Japon, la Chine confirmant de son côté mercredi qu’elle enverra son vice-premier ministre à de cruciales discussions sino-américaines la semaine prochaine en Suède. Le président américain entend imposer à partir du 1er août de massives surtaxes dites « réciproques », initialement prévues au 1er avril puis suspendues, à nombre de pays – à moins qu’ils ne concluent d’ici là des accords avec les États-Unis. Un compromis reste encore incertain avec l’Union européenne (UE). L’administration Trump compte pour l’heure quatre de ces accords à son actif : outre le Japon, le président américain a annoncé mardi en avoir conclu un avec les Philippines. Les États-Unis se sont par ailleurs déjà entendus avec le Royaume-Uni et le Vietnam.
Shareholders' rejection of CEO David Zaslav’s $52M pay package reflects growing frustration with underperformance—and underscores the increasing pressure on boards to align executive pay with results amid heightened investor scrutiny. Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders’ recent rejection of CEO David Zaslav’s $52 million pay package may be an indication that investors are paying greater attention to executive compensation. As fears of stagflation, recession and armed conflicts overseas grow, investors are reluctant to reward CEOs who have produced underwhelming returns over the last few years with generous pay packages. Board members who approve increased compensation for underperforming management teams in the current economic environment risk their credibility with investors and shareholder action against their reelection in the future.
Using holding power as a strategic indicator of the compensation program’s health can ensure that it truly supports retention and long-term shareholder value creation. While not usually part of a standard agenda, compensation committees that regularly assess the holding power of companies’ equity awards are in a stronger position to spot retention risks early, gauge the true impact of their executive pay programs, and maintain alignment between pay, performance, and shareholder value. Monitoring holding power is a vital sign of a compensation program’s health, just as tracking blood pressure is to physical health.
Elliott Investment Management, which is one of BP Plc’s largest shareholders, wants the energy giant’s incoming chairman to urgently improve the firm’s cost base and capital allocation, citing a weak turnaround plan. BP on Monday appointed Albert Manifold as its new chairman, replacing Helge Lund amid pressure for a change in the company’s direction from the activist shareholder. Manifold, previously the boss of building materials company CRH Plc, will join BP as a non-executive director and chair-elect on Sept. 1. “As one of BP’s largest shareholders, Elliott believes the company requires decisive and effective leadership to overcome its chronic operational under-performance,” its spokesperson said in a statement. A representative for BP declined to comment.
Activist investor Elliott Investment Management has a large investment in data center operator Equinix and has increased its stake in the last weeks, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday, after the company's stock price tumbled last month. The hedge fund, which has made a string of profitable technology investments including bets on Salesforce, Texas Instruments and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, has been holding discussions with Equinix, said the person, who was not permitted to discuss the private talks publicly. Neither Elliott's exact demands for the company nor the exact size of the stake could be learned. Equinix's stock price climbed 1.5% on Monday to close trading at $789.19.
Elliott swooped in after Equinix investors were caught off guard at the company's analyst day last month by news of a higher than expected capital expenditure plan that sparked a sharp sell-off.
McKinsey is changing the way it picks its leaders for the first time in years in an effort to circumvent the internal tensions and infighting that marked its past two elections. The elite consulting firm, as part of changes to its governance, will now elect a global managing partner to a single six-year term, and its partners will hold a confirmation vote at the four-year mark on whether the leader should serve the remaining two years of the term. McKinsey’s roughly 750 senior partners currently vote to elect a firmwide leader every three years, and that person can stand for two terms. The voting process is a forum in which partners express their support or displeasure with the overall direction of the firm, but it can be distracting as partners jockey for support internally.
Adastra Group, an IT consultancy co-headquartered in Toronto and Prague, is selling a majority stake to U.S. private equity firm Carlyle Group Inc., bringing in outside capital for the first time in 25 years as it pushes more into artificial-intelligence services. Founded in Toronto, Adastra has a unique structure and is co-run out of Canada and the Czech Republic. The company advises clients on data management strategies, such as automating reports and migrating data to the cloud. The company is the brainchild of Jan Mrazek, who is originally from Prague but moved to Toronto and worked for Bank of Montreal in the 1990s. Mr. Mrazek met his two other co-founders, Jan Cervinka and Petr Jech, at a conference in Prague in 1999.
Universal Music Group, the world’s biggest music label, disclosed on Monday that it had confidentially filed for a U.S. listing. Universal Music, whose primary listing is in the Netherlands, did not reveal the size of the U.S. offering or how much it was planning to raise. The company was valued at about €49.65-billion ($79.4-billion) based on its Monday closing price on the Dutch exchange, according to LSEG data. The stock is up about 10 per cent this year. Billionaire Bill Ackman-led Pershing Square, one of the major stockholders in Universal Music, had previously pushed the company to list its shares in the United States. The Netherlands-based company’s roster of stars includes Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Drake, The Weeknd, Ariana Grande and Harry Styles, according to its website.
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Waratah Capital Advisors Ltd., a $4-billion hedge fund manager that handles money for wealthy Canadians, is dealing with a cybersecurity breach that may have exposed sensitive client information including names, social insurance numbers and account sizes. Toronto-based Waratah disclosed in a note to clients this week that it is dealing with a cybersecurity incident and that its investigation is continuing. The money manager said it is still determining the extent of the breach, but its investigation has found certain personal information may have been impacted, including investor names, addresses, SINs, dates of birth, phone numbers, account numbers and amounts of investments.
Seven & i Holdings Co., the Japanese parent company of the 7-Eleven chain, has issued a fiery public letter accusing Canada’s Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. of distorting facts after deal talks between the two companies broke off. In its responding letter Tuesday, 7&i says Couche-Tard’s statement was “highly misleading” and argued the Japanese company “consistently engaged in good faith.” It also claimed Couche-Tard failed to take antitrust concerns seriously and demonstrated “an unfortunate lack of knowledge of the Japanese market.” “We are disappointed that [Couche-Tard] has decided to walk away from these discussions,” the 7&i statement said. “We are further disappointed that they have done so in a way that completely mischaracterizes both our engagement and the significant hurdles this transaction faced that they were not committed to resolving.”
Dollarama a annoncé lundi soir la clôture de l’acquisition de The Reject Shop, un important détaillant à bas prix australien. Le détaillant établi à Montréal étend ainsi sa présence aux 390 magasins de la marque dont le siège social est à Melbourne. Dollarama compte déjà plus de 1600 magasins au Canada ainsi qu’une participation majoritaire dans un détaillant à bas prix ayant plus de 600 emplacements en Colombie, au Guatemala, au Salvador et au Pérou. Le président et chef de la direction de Dollarama, Neil Rossy, affirme que cet ajout permettra de mettre à profit les forces du détaillant québécois en approvisionnement, en marchandisage et en vente au détail pour « favoriser l’expansion de notre nouvelle plateforme de croissance australienne à long terme ».
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warned the financial industry of a “significant impending fraud crisis” because of the ability of artificial intelligence tools to impersonate a person's voice to bypass security checks and move money. Altman spoke at a Federal Reserve conference Tuesday in Washington. “A thing that terrifies me is apparently there are still some financial institutions that will accept the voiceprint as authentication,” Altman said. “That is a crazy thing to still be doing. AI has fully defeated that.” Voiceprinting as an identification for wealthy bank clients grew popular more than a decade ago, with customers typically asked to utter a challenge phrase into the phone to access their accounts.
U.S. President Donald Trump said he has reached a trade agreement with Philippine leader Ferdinand Marcos Jr., following a meeting Tuesday at the White House, that will see the U.S. slightly drop its tariff rate for the Philippines without paying import taxes for what it sells there. Trump revealed the broad terms of the agreement on his social media network and said the U.S. and the Philippines would work together militarily. The announcement of a loose framework of a deal comes as the two countries are seeking closer security and economic ties in the face of shifting geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific region.
The United States announced Tuesday it will again pull out of the U.N.’s educational, scientific and cultural agency because it believes that its involvement is not in the country’s national interest, and that the agency promotes anti-Israel speech. This decision comes only two years after the United States rejoined UNESCO after leaving in 2018, during U.S. President Donald Trump’s first administration. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the withdrawal was linked to UNESCO’s perceived agenda to “advance divisive social and cultural causes.” She added in a statement that UNESCO’s decision “to admit the ‘State of Palestine’ as a Member State is highly problematic, contrary to U.S. policy, and contributed to the proliferation of anti-Israel rhetoric within the organization.”
So far, 2025 has tested the mettle of business leaders around the world. A steady stream of unforeseen developments has forced CEOs and board directors to constantly reassess their company’s strategy and explore a range of scenarios. This climate reinforces the critical importance of a constructive CEO-board relationship, as our recent Measure of Leadership survey highlighted. It also brings into sharp relief the acumen boards need to effectively manage uncertainty and spot opportunities in a landscape that can change daily. In our survey, CEOs and board members were closely aligned on the expertise that will be most important for boards to add or increase to remain effective in the next three years — and they aren’t necessarily the traditional ones that most boards have today.
The business threat landscape has evolved considerably over the last decade. There are constant threats organizations need to be aware of that can cause significant disruptions to operations. Everything from increased cyberattacks to a growing frequency and severity of natural disasters can pose a major threat to a business’s long-term viability. These threats can quickly lead to supply chain disruptions, system breaches and operational failures, causing costly downtime and major financial losses with limited warning. These realities demand boards view disaster recovery as something that doesn’t just live with IT departments – it concerns and threatens the entire organization.
British business leaders are putting a brake on their plans to combat climate change and do not believe the government's approach to net zero is compatible with growth, a survey of 1,000 executives showed on Tuesday. Both large companies and small enterprises in health, construction, finance and manufacturing are turning away from climate-related action like target-setting, as falling confidence in Britain's climate agenda and high costs turn the tide on enthusiasm for net zero, the survey by the British Standards Institution (BSI) showed. The shift is happening despite the Labour government's commitment to boosting green growth, and substantial pledges for investment in clean energy, green technology, and jobs.
As unionized workers at Canada Post begin voting on the Crown corporation’s latest offer, one of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers’ (CUPW) negotiators is urging members to vote against it, slamming Canada Post for trying to “control people’s lives.” Jim Gallant told CTV Your Morning in an interview Monday that despite the 18-month long negotiation, the latest offer is still not up to the mark, emphasizing “the devil is in the details.” “The wording that they have, and this language, just open a wide door that they could drive a motor home through to get what they want,” he said after reading through all the offer documents.
Subway named a former Burger King executive as its next chief executive, with a mandate to improve U.S. sales and help expand globally. Jonathan Fitzpatrick is set to become Subway’s first new CEO since private-equity firm Roark Capital bought the sandwich chain for around $9.6 billion last year. He most recently served as CEO of Roark-backed automotive services company Driven Brands from 2012 to last May. He is scheduled to start at Subway July 28. John Chidsey, who helped usher Subway through the sale to Roark, departed the chain last year. Fitzpatrick, 55, said Monday that he aimed to work with Subway’s franchisees and employees to boost sales and profitability, while expanding the company’s international footprint.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday that he will meet his Chinese counterpart next week and discuss what is likely to be an extension of an Aug. 12 deadline for higher tariffs. Bessent told Fox Business Network’s Mornings With Maria program that trade with China was in “a very good place” and the meetings in Stockholm would take place next Monday and Tuesday. “I think we’ve actually moved to a new level with China, where it’s very constructive and...we’re going to be able to get a lot of things done now that trade has kind of settled in at a good level,” Bessent said.
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