Corporate governance - Vigil

President Donald Trump convened his Cabinet in person on Thursday to deliver a message: You’re in charge of your departments, not Elon Musk. According to two administration officials, Trump told top members of his administration that Musk was empowered to make recommendations to the departments but not to issue unilateral decisions on staffing and policy. Musk was also in the room. The meeting followed a series of mass firings and threats to government workers from the billionaire Tesla founder, who helms the Department of Government Efficiency, that created broad uncertainty across the federal government and its workforce. DOGE’s actions have faced ferocious resistance in court and criticism from Democratic lawmakers and some Republicans.

For a few years now, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become one of those recurring topics that kept finding its way into the board meeting – it may even be a standing agenda item for some organizations. More recently, however, AI is now part of the conversation, quietly shaping discussions, as businesses increasingly adopt the use of AI-powered note-taking technology. These AI-powered tools promise to improve meeting efficiency, streamline access to information both during and after-meetings, and help keep accurate records. They leverage machine learning to produce meeting transcripts, generate summaries of key decisions, and track action items for post-meeting distribution. All of which can be beneficial depending on whether the goal is to produce meeting notes or meeting minutes.

Days after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv’s allies united to deploy a weapon against the Kremlin: freezing Russia’s overseas assets. The question of what to do with the $300 billion in frozen funds has divided European countries ever since. But now that the U.S. is threatening to withdraw support for Ukraine, pressure is mounting on European countries to formally seize the funds and use them to help Kyiv.

The U.S. continued to generate jobs at a steady pace in February, offering reassurances that the labor market has remained relatively stable since President Trump took office.

The U.S. added a seasonally adjusted 151,000 jobs in February, the Labor Department reported Friday, slightly below the gain of 170,000 jobs economists polled by The Wall Street Journal expected to see. That was better than the 125,000 jobs added in January. The unemployment rate, which is based on a separate survey from the jobs figures, rose to 4.1% from 4%. Economists believe that the cuts to federal government jobs that have come since Trump took office came too late to be captured in the February figures. But the report did show a loss of 10,000 federal government jobs over the month, unusual both because it is a decline and because it is such a large one.

Canadian Tire Corp. Ltd. has announced a transformation strategy that will see the retailer invest more than $2-billion over four years and reorganize its operations, after “a tremendous amount of introspection” that identified inefficiencies in the business. The “True North” strategy, announced Thursday, will restructure the company’s leadership and sets a new course after Canadian Tire was forced to scale back its last four-year plan amid a drastic downturn in consumer spending. That plan was supposed to involve $3.4-billion in investment over four years; instead, Canadian Tire spent $1.8-billion over three years. The company is now planning to relocate and remodel more Canadian Tire, Sport Chek and Mark’s stores; to improve data analytics and its use of artificial intelligence; to continue expanding its loyalty program; and to reduce separation in the operations of its various retail banners and Canadian Tire Bank.

(Ottawa) Statistique Canada indique que l’excédent commercial du Canada en janvier a atteint son plus haut niveau depuis mai 2022, les exportations et les importations ayant bondi face aux menaces de droits de douane des États-Unis. [...] « En effet, l’impact négatif sur les expéditions à destination des États-Unis sera l’un des principaux canaux par lesquels l’économie canadienne sera affectée. Un dollar canadien faible pourrait offrir une certaine compensation, mais ajouterait aux pressions inflationnistes liées aux droits de douane pour les Canadiens », a-t-il indiqué.

The failure of the Moonshots group to grasp the central role of the customer in corporate purpose is related to their missing the significance of digital technology. That’s because digital technology enables the achievement of an almost infinite set of possibilities. Success in its use requires narrowing the focus to those possibilities that create value to customers. Otherwise, firms will waste time and money on many things that customers don’t want or need. A tight focus on the customer is required if a firm is to make money from the technology.

The S&P 500’s tech sector, which is home to Microsoft and Apple, has climbed 8% since the start of the banking crisis, while the communications segment that houses the parent companies of Google and Facebook is up 8.1%.

« [Les assemblées] sont des outils importants pour les investisseurs qui souhaitent canaliser le changement, souligne la directrice générale de la Coalition canadienne de la bonne gouvernance, Catherine McCall. Ils peuvent alors présenter des sujets importants à la direction et au conseil d’administration et leur expliquer en quoi ils sont importants pour les investisseurs. »

Une première résolution relative au climat a été présentée par un actionnaire de la Banque Royale en 2018. Cinq ans plus tard, cinq propositions sont à l’ordre du jour de sa prochaine assemblée. On en compte trois à celle de la Banque Toronto Dominion, deux à la Banque Scotia, une à la Banque de Montréal, une à la Banque Canadienne Impériale et une à la Banque Nationale du Canada.

Shareholder meetings that take place early in the year are often a bellwether for the proxy season ahead, and with snow still on the ground across Northern Europe, we have already seen clear signs that many German companies will face investor rebellions this year if they do not learn lessons from these initial cases. At issue is the format of those very shareholder meetings, and whether companies should be able to hold them virtually. In AGMs that took place in the first half of February, shareholders rejected proposals at travel and tourism company TUI and multinational tech company Siemens that would have allowed management to continue to hold virtual shareholder meetings in the future. As it stands, these companies will have to start holding in-person shareholder meetings again for the first time since 2020.

British American Tobacco said a Canadian court approved its plan to settle outstanding litigation in the country. The FTSE 100 cigarette maker–which houses the Kent, Dunhill and Lucky Strike brands–on Friday said that the Ontario Superior Court of Justice approved the plan of compromise and arrangement for its Canadian subsidiary Imperial Tobacco Canada. The company said that the plan resolves all Canadian tobacco litigation, and the settlement will be funded by its subsidiary’s funds and the profits generated from the future sale of tobacco products in Canada. It will also allow the subsidiary to emerge from its creditor protection under the Canadian Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act since 2019. The company had made 6.2 billion-pound ($7.99 billion) provision related to the proposed settlement in Canada, according to the company’s latest earnings.

President Trump on Thursday suspended for one month the 25% tariffs he placed on Mexican and Canadian products earlier this week. But there is a catch: The deal only applies to goods that had been traded duty-free under a 2020 North American trade agreement. [...] The analytics firm Trade Partnership Worldwide estimated that in 2024, 50% of Mexican exports and 38% of Canadian exports entered the U.S. duty-free under USMCA. These products include cars, trucks and auto parts from either country. Also falling under this category are Canadian rapeseed oils, chocolates, beef and engines; and Mexican television sets, air conditioners, avocados and tomatoes. About 40% of U.S. imports from Canada and Mexico fell outside USMCA but still passed through duty-free: The U.S. imposes no tariffs on a host of products, regardless of the supplier country.

Royal Bank of Canada paid chief executive officer Dave McKay nearly $26-million last year, a 60-per-cent raise from his prior-year compensation. The bank awarded Mr. McKay a bonus of $6.67-million, more than double his $2.70-million bonus from the 2023 fiscal year. The bank gave Mr. McKay stock awards valued at $13.46-million, up from $8.82-million the year before. Mr. McKay made $16.13-million in fiscal 2023. Part of the 2024 stock award was a special grant in December valued at $4-million. RBC said Mr. McKay will get the stock in three years if the bank meets what it calls strategic cost and earnings objectives related to the integration of HSBC Canada, which the bank acquired last year. RBC called it a “once-in-a-generation acquisition” in its proxy circular to shareholders, filed Thursday, where the compensation is disclosed. The bank said the $4-million award is “in recognition of the leadership required to integrate HSBC Bank Canada and realize the full value potential of the acquisition.”

Walgreens Boots Alliance will be taken private by Sycamore Partners for $10-billion, the firms said on Thursday, closing out nearly a century of trading on public markets for the U.S. pharmacy giant. The price is a fraction of the $100-billion the second-largest U.S. pharmacy chain was worth a decade ago. Its fortunes collapsed as drug margins fell and as consumers turned to cheaper rivals such as Amazon and Walmart to fill their prescriptions and purchase toiletries. And when rivals diversified into insurance or prescription management, Walgreens invested billions of dollars in buying other pharmacy chains such as European giant Alliance Boots despite the trend away from in-store shopping. Sycamore will pay $11.45 per share, a premium of 8 per cent to Walgreens’ closing price of $10.60 on Thursday. Shares of the company rose nearly 6 per cent in extended trading.

The Swiss bank, buffeted by years of missteps and scandals, had a choice last year: Raise even billions more in new stock to shut down its scandal-prone investment bank or pull out the best parts and try to make money. It went for the second option, and miscalculated investors’ willingness to give it one more shot.

The plan, announced in October as bank customers and trading partners alike were jumping ship, looked too complex to many analysts and investors.

A bipartisan pair of senators Friday announced a bill that would require the Biden administration to perform an additional review before deciding how much funding each state will receive under the program, which is the federal government’s largest-ever one-time allocation to build out broadband to Americans who don’t have it.  

Sens. Jacky Rosen (D., Nev.) and John Thune (R., S.D.) say that as the law stands, federal officials might not have time to ensure the funding is distributed based on accurate maps of which homes and businesses lack broadband access.