Corporate governance - Vigil

Authorities investigating timely trading in Activision Blizzard Inc.  securities are looking into at least one meeting between the videogame firm’s chief executive and one of three traders days before they placed a large bet on Activision shares, according to people familiar with the matter.

Assicurazioni Generali, one of Europe’s largest insurance companies, is under siege. The board wants shareholders to renew the mandate of incumbent Chief Executive Officer Philippe Donnet at a meeting on April 29, and has the backing of top shareholder Mediobanca, a Milanese bank. But the second-largest shareholder, cement tycoon Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone, last week proposed a different board of directors, including veteran Generali executive Luciano Cirinà as CEO, who was promptly fired for volunteering to replace his boss.

Ontario-based Chartwell, which own seniors retirement residences and long-term care homes and is Canada’s largest seniors housing operator, is selling its long-term care portfolio to a partnership between AgeCare Health Services Inc. and Axium Infrastructure Inc. AgeCare owns long-term care facilities in Alberta and British Columbia, while Axium is a private investment manager.

The CCRM, a non-profit industry group, said Thursday that the facility will be run by a new subsidiary called OmniaBio Inc., which will operate what it hopes to become the largest contract development and manufacturing facility for these therapies in Canada. Up to 2,000 people could be employed at the planned 400,000-square-foot facility by 2026, and it is expected to it take on life-sciences companies of all sizes as clients.

The decision is yet one more signal that prices are rising across the board. The Montreal-based company has consistently said it would only pass on elevated costs to shoppers if competitors do so first. Retailers are facing higher costs for everything from transportation to wages, packaging and the raw materials such as plastic that go into making products.

The Canadian Public Accountability Board, which oversees the firms that audit publicly traded companies, said two unnamed members of the “Big Four” – Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PwC – exceeded CPAB’s targets for problem audits. CPAB said all of the seven other large firms it inspects annually exceeded the targets.

Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn is seeking two board seats at Kroger Co., pushing the U.S. supermarket giant to make changes among its pork suppliers and to address what Mr. Icahn said was a widening gap between worker and executive pay.

In recent years, shares in Chinese companies selling everyday goods like milk, beer and rice crackers have been a safer bet than new-economy businesses such as online platforms and electric-car makers.

Months after returning home to a hero’s welcome in China, Huawei Technologies Co. finance chief Meng Wanzhou was back in the spotlight Monday: This time, she was in more familiar surroundings, taking the stage at Huawei’s headquarters to deliver the company’s closely watched annual results.

A consortium of environmental groups launched a campaign on Monday seeking to change bitcoin’s code to decrease its energy use, which has grown substantially in the past few years.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is exposing the trade-offs in a hot Wall Street product meant to encourage good governance.

L’annonce a été faite vendredi matin en compagnie des ministres Pierre Fitzgibbon à l’Économie, et Benoit Charrette, à l’Environnement, de même que Guy LeBlanc, grand patron d’investissement Québec, bras investisseur du gouvernement. Québec accorde 22,5 millions à Recyclage Lithion.

Companies led by women disproportionately attract less investment than those led by men, according to a large-scale study of female entrepreneurship in the UK.

Mr. Putin’s decree on Thursday leaves Europe facing the prospect of losing more than a third of its gas supply. Germany, the most heavily reliant on Russia, has already activated an emergency plan that could lead to rationing in Europe’s biggest economy.

A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) is software running on a blockchain that is designed to replicate the company structure and achieve goals without hierarchical management. Whereas executives and boards govern traditional organizations, DAOs are owned and operated by their community; they rely on the rules programmed into smart contracts to execute governance decisions.

Intel Corp. awarded Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger compensation last year that could be worth nearly $180 million, tying much of it to whether his sweeping turnaround effort at the chip giant sparks a sharp improvement in its stock price.

An Ontario court has authorized Bridging Finance Inc.’s receiver to reject the two final bids it received during an unsuccessful, five-month effort to sell the private lender.

German energy group E.ON SE and Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest are teaming up to produce green hydrogen to replace Russian gas, showing how the Western push to cut reliance on Russian energy imports in the wake of the Ukraine war is accelerating investments in renewable energy.

Last week, the highly indebted Chinese real-estate developer and its Evergrande Property Services Group Ltd. unit said lenders had enforced their rights over 13.4 billion yuan, or about $2.1 billion, of bank deposits pledged by the subsidiary to guarantee third-party borrowing.

HP will pay $40 cash for each outstanding share of Poly, a premium of more than 50% from its closing price Friday. The companies valued the deal for Poly, formerly known as Plantronics, at $3.3 billion, including debt.