Corporate governance - Vigil

Le patron de la Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) ne ferme pas la porte à soutenir davantage d’entreprises québécoises de l’industrie de la défense dans un contexte où les gouvernements veulent accélérer leurs investissements militaires. « Je pense qu’on va regarder attentivement ce secteur-là », a dit le président et chef de la direction de la CDPQ, Charles Emond, en mêlée de presse, en marge d’un évènement du Cercle canadien de Montréal, mercredi. La Caisse appuie déjà plusieurs entreprises du milieu de l’aérospatiale, mais elle portera également une attention aux différents segments qui composent l’industrie de la défense. « Il faut voir dans le monde dans lequel on vit, a évoqué M. Emond. L’un des droits stipulés par les Nations unies, c’est la sécurité des populations.

Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu says she will “exercise my authority” to force a vote on Canada Post’s final offers to the mail carriers’ union. Canada Post had asked the minister to force the vote in late May, according to the union, which says it’s against such a move. “After 18 months of negotiation, over 200 meetings … 33 days of strike and a lockout in the fall,” a vote is “in the public interest,” Hajdu wrote in an online statement.

a ministre fédérale de l’Emploi, Patty Hajdu, a déclaré qu’elle soumettrait au vote la dernière offre de Postes Canada aux travailleurs des postes syndiqués dès que possible. Le gouvernement cherche à mettre fin à l’impasse des négociations entre la société d’État et le Syndicat des travailleurs et travailleuses des postes (STTP). Plus de détails à venir.  

Depuis 10 ans, les PDG se sont succédé à la tête d’Hydro-Québec en laissant des plans inachevés. C’est au tour de Michael Sabia de quitter prématurément une organisation qu’il vient d’engager dans le plan d’expansion le plus coûteux et le plus ambitieux de son histoire. M. Sabia quittera son poste le 4 juillet. La société d’État n’a pas encore nommé la personne qui assurera l’intérim pendant le processus de recherche d’un successeur, qui pourrait prendre un certain temps. Le conseil d’administration a la responsabilité d’assurer la poursuite des objectifs de l’organisation, de déterminer des profils de candidats et de suggérer des noms, indique Alexandra Langelier, de l’Institut sur la gouvernance. « M. Sabia va peut-être lui-même suggérer des noms », avance-t-elle.

BlackRock said on Thursday it was aiming to grow its revenue to $35 billion and more by 2030, as the asset management giant expands its foothold in private markets. The New York-based firm, which reported revenue of $20 billion for 2024, will hold an investor day on Thursday that is expected to provide insight into the firm’s strategic priorities and its growing focus on private markets. The world’s largest asset manager, overseeing $11.58 trillion as of the end of the first quarter, last year expanded its presence in private markets through a series of acquisitions that BlackRock’s boss Larry Fink said were transformational for the New York-based firm. BlackRock spent about $25 billion in 2024 on infrastructure investment fund Global Infrastructure Partners and private credit business HPS Investment Partners. It also struck a $3.2 billion deal to acquire U.K. data provider Preqin. That acquisition officially closed in March this year.

U.S. private equity fund Lone Star has decided to sell its 75% stake in Novo Banco to French banking group BPCE in a deal that would value Portugal's fourth-largest lender at around 7 billion euros ($8.14 billion), Portuguese economic news outlet ECO said on Thursday. ECO said the "decision has been taken" and should be communicated to the market later on Thursday, without citing its sources. Reuters was not able to independently verify the information. Lone Star and Novo Banco declined to comment and BPCE did not immediately respond to a request for comment. With this decision, if confirmed, Lone Star is abandoning the option of Novo Banco making an initial public offering that was advocated by Novo Banco management.

U.S. grains merchant Bunge is close to getting a ruling from Chinese regulators on its $8.2 billion purchase of Glencore-backed Viterra with a verdict expected within days, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday. The merger, first announced in 2023, would create a global crop trading and processing giant closer in scale to chief rivals Archer-Daniels-Midland and Cargill. Bunge and Viterra said in two separate, similarly worded statements to Reuters that the companies were in the final stage of regulatory approval and thanked Chinese officials for "constructive dialogue throughout the review process." China’s commerce ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
The deal has secured most global approvals required for the merger, including from the EU and Canada.

Telus is proposing a more than US$400-million deal to take back control of its affiliate, Telus Digital which has seen its share price plummet since it went public, locking in major losses and putting a damper on future spinout plans. Telus has signed a non-binding indication of interest to acquire all outstanding shares of Telus Digital, which offers technology outsourcing, for US$3.40 for multiple and subordinate shares, the company said in a release Thursday morning. The company’s share price debuted at US$25 following its initial public offer in 2021, but has since declined by more than 90 per cent following industry-wide pressures on customer service businesses and the loss of major clients such as Meta Inc.

La Banque mondiale (BM) va soutenir des projets de production d’énergie à partir du nucléaire « pour la première fois depuis des décennies », a annoncé mercredi le président de l’institution, Ajay Banga, au personnel dans un courrier que l’AFP a pu consulter. Cela passera par un soutien « aux efforts de prolongement des réacteurs existants dans les pays qui en ont déjà, à l’amélioration des réseaux et infrastructures. Nous allons également travailler à l’accélération du potentiel des petits réacteurs modulaires (PRM) qui offriront une option viable à plus de pays à long terme », a expliqué dans son courriel le président de la BM. Pour y parvenir, la Banque va s’engager dans un « partenariat » avec l’Agence internationale de l’énergie atomique (AIEA) afin de « renforcer [sa] capacité à conseiller sur les garanties de non-prolifération, la sécurité et le cadre de régulation », a détaillé M. Banga.

Le mouvement coopératif est bien intégré dans l’économie québécoise, que ce soit avec ses géants financiers et agricoles, comme le Mouvement Desjardins et Sollio Groupe Coopératif, ou avec ses nombreux acteurs de plus petite taille dispersés dans la province. Voici un portrait chiffré réalisé avec l’aide du Conseil québécois de la coopération et de la mutualité (CQCM). 2900 C’est le nombre approximatif de coopératives et de mutuelles qu’il y a au Québec. En 2013, on en comptait autour de 3300. Cette baisse est attribuable notamment à de nombreuses fusions qui ont eu lieu principalement dans le domaine des services financiers, agricoles et commerciaux.

Here’s what chief information security officers and directors both need to consider to ensure effective cybersecurity collaboration. Board meetings are a crucial forum for chief information security officers (CISOs) to bridge the gap between technical cybersecurity operations and the strategic imperatives of the organization. Too often, these conversations are derailed by technical jargon or disconnected from the board’s core priorities: shareholder value, risk reduction, and business growth. For meetings to be effective, CISOs should tailor their approach by translating risk into terms the full board understands, aligning security with business goals, and fostering a collaborative relationship with the board.

Meta is to announce a $15bn (£11bn) bid to achieve computerised “superintelligence”, according to multiple reports. The Silicon Valley race to dominate artificial intelligence is speeding up despite the patchy performance of many existing AI systems. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, is expected to announce the company will buy a 49% stake in Scale AI, a startup led by Alexandr Wang and co-founded by Lucy Guo, in a move described by one Silicon Valley analyst as the action of “a wartime CEO”. Superintelligence is described as a type of AI that can perform better than humans at all tasks.

European buyout group Oakley Capital has acquired a majority stake in strategic advisory firm G3 in a sign of continued investor interest in London’s thriving corporate intelligence industry. Founded in 2004, G3 is one of a clutch of firms in the UK capital that relies on networks of global sources to provide intelligence on political and business issues to corporate clients around the world. The deal values the company at more than £250mn, based on a “high teens” multiple of forecast future pre-tax earnings of £17mn, according to people familiar with the matter. Oakley declined to comment.

German biotech firm BioNTech has agreed to acquire domestic peer CureVac for about $1.25 billion worth of BioNTech shares, it said on Thursday, to boost its work on new mRNA-based cancer treatments. Under the deal, which pairs two former rivals in the race to develop COVID-19 vaccines, CureVac shareholders stand to receive a premium of 55% over the three-month average share price, and leave them with a stake of about 4%-6% in BioNTech, the suitor said. CureVac's Frankfurt-listed shares surged 27% to a five-month high, valuing the company at 1.04 billion euros ($1.2 billion), while BioNTech shares were down 2% by 1237 GMT. The deal further underscores BioNTech's long-term pursuit of new cancer treatments as it aims to show that its success as Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine partner, which left its balance sheet flush with billions of euros in cash, was not a fluke.

Chief Executive David Zaslav loves the 1941 Humphrey Bogart classic “The Maltese Falcon” about a group of unsavory characters searching for an elusive statuette of a gold jewel-encrusted falcon. The falcon is “the stuff dreams are made of,” Bogart’s character famously says, driving people to do just about anything to possess it. Combining Warner with Discovery was Zaslav’s Maltese falcon. And like the movie’s protagonists, Zaslav couldn’t secure it. His old world entertainment titan’s ambition collided with the realities of a media business in turmoil. Now, three years after he closed on a deal that merged his Discovery cable TV networks with AT&T’s WarnerMedia business, Zaslav is breaking it into two separate companies.

President Donald Trump says the U.S. has reached an agreement with China to stand down on a series of punitive measures enacted over the past month, returning the two economic giants to the partial trade-war détente reached in May. The U.S. government said Wednesday that the deal involves China agreeing to stop restricting exports of rare earth minerals and related magnets to the U.S. in exchange for the U.S. reversing planned restrictions on Chinese students and lifting export controls on software. The full deal, reached after two days of talks at Lancaster House in London, was not immediately released. “OUR DEAL WITH CHINA IS DONE, SUBJECT TO FINAL APPROVAL WITH PRESIDENT XI AND ME,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social. “RELATIONSHIP IS EXCELLENT!” He added that he and Chinese President Xi Jinping “are going to work closely together to open up China to American trade.”

Shares of planemaker Boeing fell nearly 8% in premarket U.S. trading on Thursday after an Air India aircraft with 242 people crashed minutes after taking off from India’s western city of Ahmedabad. India’s federal health minister said “many people” were killed in the crash. The plane was headed to Gatwick Airport in the U.K., with police officers saying it crashed in a civilian area near the Ahmedabad airport. Aviation tracking site Flightradar24 said the plane was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, one of the most modern passenger aircraft in service.
Developing story on the plane crash
It was not immediately clear what caused the crash. Boeing said in a statement it was aware of initial reports and was working to gather more information.

A Chinese-backed militia is protecting new rare earth mines in eastern Myanmar, according to four people familiar with the matter, as Beijing moves to secure control of the minerals it is wielding as a bargaining chip in its trade war with Washington. China has a near-monopoly over the processing of heavy rare earths into magnets that power critical goods like wind turbines, medical devices and electric vehicles. But Beijing is heavily reliant on Myanmar for the rare earth metals and oxides needed to produce them: the war-torn country was the source of nearly half those imports in the first four months of this year, Chinese customs data show.

A group of Reitmans Ltd. shareholders have released their second letter in two months urging the apparel retailer to address its stagnating value, saying they want to replace two board directors and end the company’s dual-class share structure. The open letter published Wednesday is from Donville Kent Asset Management Inc., Parma Investments Ltd. and an unnamed private investor. They collectively own more than 5.5 million class A shares in Reitmans and another 1.1 million common shares in the company. In the letter, they reiterated their claim from a May 13 letter that the Reitmans board has demonstrated “consistently poor decision making” around governance issues and ignored their requests to explore how the company could unlock more value for shareholders. 

Corporate America’s diversity, equity and inclusion campaign is going incognito. It’s a pragmatic move—unless a company has Harvard-level supplies of fight and funding. Businesses that once trumpeted efforts to hire more women and people of color recognize flaunting such initiatives today is liable to attract unwanted scrutiny from the Trump administration, courts or influential activists like Robby Starbuck. Strategies for flying under the radar include ditching the DEI acronym and applying a blander label, like “employee engagement,” to similar programs. Some employers are using third parties to recruit diverse job candidates so company career pages don’t invite attention. Others are preserving inclusive benefits, like hormone therapy for transgender employees, but no longer advertising them.

As companies navigate through uncertain times, designing and adopting balanced, resilient pay for performance executive compensation programs can help companies forge ahead through stormy waters. If they have not already, compensation committees might consider incorporating certain features, such as non-financial metrics, into the annual incentive plan and ensuring that the long-term incentive program balances the need for retention with paying for performance. Thoughtful plan designs can meaningfully enhance the resilience of these programs, even during periods of uncertainty.

Plus que des chèques. Au-delà d’une augmentation historique des investissements en défense, l’industrie exhorte le gouvernement Carney à s’assurer de mettre en place ce qui lui servirait de tremplin ici ainsi qu’à l’étranger : une véritable politique industrielle.

Tout le monde se dit prêt à répondre à l’appel d’Ottawa, mais le coup de barre doit être davantage qu’une manne ponctuelle. Pour bien des entreprises, un contrat militaire peut être synonyme de portes qui s’ouvrent.  « Ça nous a permis de rentrer chez un grand donneur d’ordres », lâche Martin Brassard, président et chef de la direction d’Héroux-Devtek, géant québécois des trains d’atterrissage et des composants d’aéronautique, en entrevue téléphonique avec La Presse.

The market for Al governance-in the form of software, services and hardware-will triple to $36bn globally in the next ten years, according to new research. The news comes as separate research reveals companies are accelerating toward Al integration into their business models and processes, despite many corporate leaders failing to properly understand the governance risks involved. The consultancy Exactitude says the global Al governance market was $12bn in 2024 but will grow by $24bn over the coming decade, as businesses rush to adopt artificial intelligence into their systems and process.

A US private equity consortium has agreed a £1.7bn deal for NHS landlord Assura following a months-long bidding process, in the latest takeover of a London-listed company. Assura, which owns hundreds of UK doctors’ surgeries and healthcare centres, on Wednesday said it had reached agreement on terms of a “best and final” cash offer from KKR and Stonepeak. The company had in April agreed to a £1.6bn bid from KKR and Stonepeak, but last month said it would consider an offer from its rival Primary Health Properties, which would have kept the company in the UK market. “After nearly a year of engagement, this is our best and final offer which we believe is lower risk than other alternatives and higher in value,” said Andrew Furze, managing director at KKR.