Corporate governance - Vigil

Activist investor Barington Capital Group has built a stake in Victoria’s Secret and believes the lingerie retailer hasn’t lived up to its full potential. The investor’s arrival adds to the pressure that Victoria’s Secret is already facing from another big disgruntled shareholder and after a recent security incident caused the company to temporarily shut down its website. Barington revealed on Monday that it owns a stake of over 1% in Victoria’s Secret and intends to keep buying more shares, confirming an earlier report by The Wall Street Journal. The retailer’s stock has tumbled more than 50% so far this year, bringing its market value to about $1.5 billion. After Victoria’s Secret separated from what is now Bath & Body Works in 2021, it was valued at over $6.5 billion.

A year after BCE Inc. announced plans to sell its Northern Canada telecom business to a coalition of Indigenous companies for $1-billion, a final deal remains in limbo. Last June, BCE-owned Bell Canada said it was selling Northwestel Inc. to Sixty North Unity, a group composed of Indigenous organizations from the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut. The companies billed the deal as “a landmark partnership to advance Indigenous self-determination through the Indigenous ownership of critical telecommunications infrastructure in the north.” A year later, however, Sixty North says it is still exploring a range of private and government funding sources to complete the deal.

New data from the Port of Montreal confirm Canadian exporters are turning away from the United States toward overseas markets in greater numbers, a rapid shift its chief executive says heightens the urgency to boost investment in marine transport infrastructure. Among the most startling numbers, Canada’s second-biggest port has logged a 77-per-cent surge in two-way cargo traffic with China over the past few months, with a 22-per-cent gain in outbound shipments to the Asian country, according to information shared with The Globe and Mail. China is now the port’s second-largest export market after India, up from fifth last year, the statistics show. Cargo volumes from Montreal to Spain are up 147 per cent year-over-year through May, up 11 per cent to the Netherlands, and up 10 per cent to Northern Europe, the numbers show.

À proprement parler, personne n’est tout à fait gagnant ou perdant, selon les économistes interrogés par La Presse. « Mais oui, on est déficitaires pour ce qui est des services », affirme d’emblée Pierre Emmanuel Paradis, économiste et président de la firme AppEco. Explication : comme vous le mentionnez, la balance commerciale entre deux pays comprend deux éléments. D’une part, l’échange de biens, comme des produits manufacturés ou des ressources naturelles ; d’autre part, l’échange de services. Mais si on décortique cette balance, le Canada affiche un excédent commercial dans ses échanges de biens avec les États-Unis. C’est toutefois l’inverse dans la catégorie des services.

Meta is making a $14.3 billion investment in artificial intelligence company Scale and recruiting its CEO Alexandr Wang to join a team developing “superintelligence” at the tech giant. The deal announced Thursday reflects a push by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to revive AI efforts at the parent company of Facebook and Instagram as it faces tough competition from rivals such as Google and OpenAI. Meta announced what it called a “strategic partnership and investment” with Scale late Thursday. Scale said the $14.3 billion investment puts its market value at over $29 billion. Scale said it will remain an independent company but the agreement will “substantially expand Scale and Meta’s commercial relationship.” Meta will hold a 49 per cent stake in the startup.

India’s oldest airline was facing challenges even before Thursday, when a Boeing jet it operated crashed shortly after takeoff and killed more than 240 people on board. Air India hasn’t suffered crashes in its recent past, but it has been working to overcome a legacy of unprofitability and a reputation for shoddy service. The carrier was a chronic money loser for the Indian government before it was privatized four years ago and purchased by Tata Sons, a holding company linked to one of India’s largest conglomerates. Campbell Wilson, a New Zealander and veteran of the Singapore budget carrier Scoot, was brought in as chief executive. The Tata family pledged to take advantage of booming Indian travel demand and restore the airline to its former glory.

Boards know the importance of careful succession planning. The benefits of a strong transition to a new CEO are obvious, but a failed succession can cost companies billions in shareholder value, be distracting and disruptive for employees, and cause other top talent to head for the door. In a new study, we discovered a way boards can help their appointees drive value: start them at the beginning of the calendar or fiscal year. In new research, published in the Journal of Management, we studied CEO “phase entrainment”—in other words, the synchronizing of the appointment of a new CEO (firm cycle) with the beginning of a yearly cycle (dominant cycle)—to see whether it had an impact on the firm’s post-succession performance. Our sample consisted of 690 CEO successions carried out by S&P 500 firms between 2005 and 2019.

Thermo Fisher Scientific plans to sell its diagnostics unit for about $4 billion in an attempt to offload some of its low-growth assets, the Financial Times reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. The contract drug manufacturer recently enlisted advisers to explore private equity interest in part of its diagnostics business, including its microbiology unit, which produces infectious disease testing equipment, according to the Financial Times. The auction process does not guarantee a sale, the report said, adding that Thermo Fisher may decide to retain the asset.

Railroad operator Norfolk Southern said on Thursday it had elected former Delta Air Lines CEO Richard Anderson as the independent chair of the board effective immediately. Anderson will additionally serve as chair of the Executive Committee and Strategy & Planning Committee, the company said. The aviation veteran's appointment comes after Claude Mongeau resigned from the U.S. railway operator's board as chairman earlier this month, citing personal reasons. In May last year, activist hedge fund Ancora Holdings won backing from Norfolk Southern shareholders for board representation, resulting in Anderson's appointment to the company's board.

Swedish pension fund AP7 said on Friday it has blacklisted and sold all its shares in U.S. electric vehicle maker Tesla citing violations of union rights in the United States. "AP7 has decided to blacklist Tesla due to verified violations of labor rights in the United States," the pension fund said in a statement. "Despite several years of dialogue with Tesla, including shareholder proposals in collaboration with other investors, the company has not taken sufficient measures to address the issues," it added. An AP7 spokesperson said the fund's stake in Tesla was, when it was sold in late May, worth around 13 billion crowns ($1.36 billion). At the time, the stake represented around 1% of the AP7 Equity Fund, the spokesperson said.

The Public Sector Pension Investment Board is focusing more on investing in Canada and outside the United States after wild swings in markets tested the $300-billion fund, which earned 12.6 per cent in its fiscal year ended March 31. Months of turmoil from tariffs and trade disputes, combined with the threat of punitive new U.S. tax measures, are prompting PSP Investments to think twice about where it makes its next deal. PSP manages pensions for the federal public service, Canadian Armed Forces and the RCMP. More than 40 per cent of its assets are invested in the U.S. – double the 20 per cent it has in Canada. But with U.S. markets gripped by instability and political strife, PSP is looking at ways to refresh its portfolio.

Le premier ministre Mark Carney le répète à chaque occasion : l’intelligence artificielle figure parmi ses priorités, aux côtés d’une hausse substantielle des dépenses fédérales dans la défense et l’armement. Pour son ministre de l’Intelligence artificielle et de l’Innovation numérique, Evan Solomon, les deux vont de pair. « L’intelligence artificielle, comme le quantique d’ailleurs, joue un rôle dans la défense de notre sécurité nationale », a affirmé à La Presse jeudi après-midi à Paris Evan Solomon. Le ministre fédéral accompagnait les dirigeants de l’hébergeur informatique montréalais HyperTec, qui a annoncé durant la conférence technologique VivaTech de Paris une expansion européenne de ses activités, un investissement d’une valeur de 5 milliards.

Temasek has joined a consortium backed by Microsoft, BlackRock (BLK.N), and tech investment company MGX to invest and expand artificial intelligence infrastructure, according to BlackRock's investor day presentation slides on Thursday. The Singapore state investment company has joined AI Infrastructure Partnership, a group that also includes BlackRock's Global Infrastructure Partners, the slides showed. AIP, formed in September with a goal to initially invest more than $30 billion in AI-related projects, is one of the world's largest efforts to invest in data centres and energy facilities needed to power AI applications such as ChatGPT. It aims to mobilise up to $100 billion including debt financing for such investments, which will focus on the United States. Temasek's participation comes after the Kuwait Investment Authority joined AIP earlier in June.

China’s market regulator has granted conditional approval for global agribusiness Bunge Global merger with Glencore-backed grain handler Viterra, it said on Monday, clearing the final hurdle for the US$34-billion megadeal announced two years ago. Confirmation came after Bunge announced it had received regulatory approval from China last Friday. The regulator said the merged company’s increased market share and control could potentially reduce competition in China’s imported soybean, barley and rapeseed markets, and thus approved the deal with conditions. Under these conditions, Bunge and Viterra committed to five obligations, including a requirement to report quarterly sales volumes to Chinese customers within 30 days after each quarter’s end.

U.S. investment giants Vista Equity Partners Management LLC and Blackstone Inc. have quietly bought out one of Canada’s most successful enterprise software vendors, Assent Inc., sources say. The buyers paid about US$400-million to Assent’s other venture-capital investors in a deal valuing the Ottawa company at roughly $1.3-billion. Assent helps 1,000 global industrial companies, including Honeywell International Inc., Boeing Co., General Electric Co., Johnson & Johnson and Toshiba Corp., keep up with regulatory and ethical standards by tracking activity by their supply chain partners on its cloud software platform.

Canada and Britain have agreed to resume stalled trade negotiations as both countries look to shore up their domestic industries and diversify their foreign markets in the face of U.S. protectionism. After a meeting in Ottawa on Sunday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said they would establish a new working group to look at ways to deepen trade ties between the two countries and address some of the irritants that led to a breakdown in bilateral free-trade talks last year. The group has been told to report back in six months. Mr. Carney also said he would put forward legislation by the autumn to ratify Britain’s accession into the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-country free-trade bloc that includes Canada.

Le Vietnam a déclaré dimanche dans un communiqué qu’il progressait dans ses négociations commerciales avec Washington, mais que des questions clés restaient en suspens alors qu’il essaie d’éviter l’imposition de droits de douane de 46 % par le président Donald Trump. La nation d’Asie du Sud-Est qui dispose du troisième excédent commercial avec les États-Unis après la Chine et le Mexique, a été ciblée avec l’un des taux les plus élevés dans l’offensive commerciale mondiale de Donald Trump. Les représentants vietnamiens et américains ont tenu trois séries de négociations en vue d’un compromis avant l’expiration d’un sursis de 90 jours de la hausse annoncée des taxes, prévue début juillet.

Le patron de Boeing a décidé d’annuler sa venue au salon de l’aéronautique du Bourget (France) la semaine prochaine, après l’écrasement meurtrier jeudi d’un appareil de l’avionneur américain en Inde, selon un message à ses employés obtenu vendredi par l’AFP. « Stephanie [Pope, responsable de l’aviation commerciale] et moi avons annulé nos projets d’assister [au salon] pour rester avec nos équipes et consacrer notre attention à notre client et à l’enquête », a indiqué Kelly Ortberg. Le dirigeant a réitéré ses « condoléances les plus sincères » pour l’écrasement d’un Boeing 787 d’Air India sur un quartier résidentiel d’Ahmedabad dans le nord de l’Inde, qui a fait au moins 265 morts.

Halfway through the FTSE 350 AGMs, companies are sustaining three times as many significant votes against executive pay than last year. Figures from shareholder advisers Georgeson show that 9% of the FTSE 350 annual general meetings so far have seen votes against remuneration reports of 20% or more. At this time last year, the figures was 2.6%. Georgeson notes that many companies are proposing bigger pay packages this year.

Toyota Motor shareholders re-elected Akio Toyoda as chairman on Thursday, highlighting support among mom-and-pop investors even as the Japanese automaker's $33 billion buyout of a group company draws criticism from overseas shareholders. Toyoda, formerly chief executive of the world's top-selling automaker and grandson of its founder, was widely expected to be re-elected at Thursday's annual general meeting. For the first year in three, he was not opposed by either of the leading proxy advisory firms which had previously flagged governance concerns. The breakdown of voting is yet to be released so it is unclear whether he secured more than last year's 72%, the lowest on record for a Toyota director. The Nikkei newspaper reported, without citing its source, that Toyoda was estimated to have received at least 96%.

Digital bank Chime's debut is expected to add more firepower to a recovering IPO market after a string of blockbuster listings in the last few months. While the strong performance of recent listings like Circle, CoreWeave and eToro has boosted confidence, analysts say macroeconomic uncertainty and tariff-related risks could still make both investors and issuers more selective. "Chime could absolutely have a major ripple effect, as many private companies are watching this closely, not just for valuation, but also for secondary market liquidity, demand depth, and overall investor appetite," said Kat Liu, vice president at IPOX.

France’s BPCE has agreed a 6.4 billion euros ($7.39 billion) deal to acquire Portugal's Novo Banco, including a 75% stake held by U.S. private equity firm Lone Star, BPCE and Lone Star said on Friday. The Portuguese state and a banking resolution fund financed by the country's banks, who own 11.5% and 13.5% of Novo Banco respectively, said separately on Friday they had also agreed to sell their stakes to BPCE. The acquisition comes amid a wave of cross-border and domestic banking mergers in Europe, where regulators have long urged industry consolidation to better integrate the financial sector and counter growing competition from U.S. banking giants. "I do think that (this) acquisition is fully in line with what the ECB is advocating for, which is European banking consolidation," BPCE Chief Executive Nicolas Namias told reporters in a call.

The world’s biggest meat company is set to debut on the New York Stock Exchange, riding strong earnings and American consumers’ fixation on protein. Ordinarily, such a deal would draw a crowd of banks, a big roadshow and a traditional listing-day bell-ringing ceremony. JBS is going a different route, simply making its shares available to trade and letting the market take it from there. The São Paulo-based company on Friday will directly list its shares on the Big Board, aiming to cement its image as an American meat conglomerate. JBS last week delisted its shares from Brazil’s São Paulo Stock Exchange, where they had traded for almost two decades. “This step will mark a new chapter in the company’s journey,” JBS Chief Executive Gilberto Tomazoni said last month.

La société montréalaise Investissements PSP, qui gère les 300 milliards de dollars d’actifs des caisses de retraite des employés fédéraux, recherche des occasions d’investir davantage au Canada dans les secteurs où elle est déjà performante ailleurs dans le monde. En particulier dans les gros actifs en infrastructures, un secteur qui pèse 32 milliards dans tout l’actif net géré par PSP, et où elle a encore obtenu son plus fort rendement sectoriel lors de son exercice terminé le 31 mars dernier. « Nous sommes particulièrement contents du rendement de notre plateforme d’investissements en infrastructures : 17,8 % sur un an, et 13 % annualisés depuis dix ans », souligne la présidente et cheffe de la direction de PSP, Deborah K. Orida, lors d’une discussion avec La Presse à l’occasion de l’annonce des résultats annuels, vendredi matin à Montréal.

Le chef par intérim du Nouveau Parti démocratique (NPD), Don Davies, affirme que le premier ministre Mark Carney manque de transparence au sujet des négociations avec les États-Unis visant à obtenir la levée des droits de douane imposés par le président Donald Trump. M. Davies affirme que le Parlement n’a pas été tenu au courant des discussions à huis clos entre MM. Carney et Trump, ni de la participation d’Ottawa aux négociations avec Washington. CBC/Radio-Canada a rapporté plus tôt dans la journée que les États-Unis et le Canada élaboraient un « document de travail » contenant les détails d’un éventuel accord commercial. Le cabinet du premier ministre n’a pas confirmé ni infirmé cette information.