Gouvernance - Veille quotidienne

Les nouveaux systèmes informatiques de la Société d'assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ) devaient lui permettre d’effacer son déficit financier. Ils en ont plutôt creusé le gouffre, et la société d’État envisage d’augmenter les frais administratifs facturés aux conducteurs pour cesser l’hémorragie. À la commission Gallant, un document présenté à l’ex-vice-présidente aux finances la SAAQ, Francine Lépinay, montre les stratégies envisagées pour renflouer les coffres de la société. On y évoque, entre autres, une révision de l’affectation des activités entre la Société et le Fonds d’assurance, une idée qui avait déjà percolé dans l’espace public et qui avait fait bondir la ministre des Transports, Geneviève Guilbault. Or, on apprend dans ce même document que la SAAQ envisage également une révision de la tarification administrative appliquée lors du renouvellement du permis de conduire.

Elliott Management has become a top three shareholder of Kansai Electric Power, Japan’s second-largest utility and a major nuclear power operator, in a sign that activist investors in the country feel emboldened to take positions in sectors considered sensitive. The New York-based activist fund now owns between 4 and 5 per cent of the company, according to people familiar with the stake. That would make Elliott a top three shareholder, based on share data from Kansai Electric. Elliott is pushing the company to increase dividends and share buybacks by selling ¥150bn ($1bn) a year of non-core assets, according to the people. They said the fund believed Kansai Electric, which has a market capitalisation of ¥2.4tn, was sitting on more than ¥2tn of non-core assets, including a large stake in a construction company and more than ¥1tn in property, according to Elliott’s valuations.

U.S. President Donald Trump urged EU officials on Tuesday to hit China with tariffs of up to 100% as part of a strategy to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a U.S. official and an EU diplomat. Trump also encouraged the European Union to slap India with similarly expansive tariffs, said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations. China and India are major purchasers of Russian oil and, as such, they play a vital role in keeping Russia's economy afloat as it continues to pursue its expanded invasion of Ukraine, which began in 2022. Trump made the request, which was conveyed via conference call, to EU sanctions envoy David O'Sullivan and other EU officials. The EU delegation is currently in Washington to discuss sanctions coordination. The EU diplomat said the U.S. had indicated it was willing to impose similar tariffs if the European Union heeded the U.S. request.

ormer Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz is warning both Canada and the United States are headed towards a recession amid a backdrop of tariffs, geopolitical tensions and economic uncertainty. In an interview with CTV’s Power Play with Vassy Kapelos on Tuesday, Poloz said the economic trajectory for both Canada and the United States is “not a positive one.” “What we’ve got is two economies, actually, that are sliding, let’s say, not in recession, probably, but sliding in that direction,” he said. The slowdown is visible in the labour market numbers, Poloz said. Canada’s unemployment rate jumped to 7.1 per cent in August as the economy shed 66,000 jobs for the month — its highest level since May 2016, excluding the pandemic period. Youth unemployment has risen to 14.5 per cent, double the national rate, which Poloz called “quite worrying,” suggesting artificial intelligence may be having an influence.

A federal judge late on Tuesday blocked President Trump from removing Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors while a lawsuit challenging her firing proceeds. Judge Jia Cobb in Washington, D.C., granted Cook’s request for a temporary court order to keep her seat on the central bank’s seven-member board for now. The decision comes just days before the Fed’s next meeting, set for Sept. 16-17. Cobb said Cook is “substantially likely” to succeed on her claim that Trump violated the Federal Reserve Act because her purported termination didn’t comply with the statute’s requirement that officials can only be removed for cause. “Removal was not meant to be based on the President’s assumptions about the official’s future performance as extrapolated from unproven conduct dating from before they assumed the office,” Cobb wrote.

Toronto-based Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd.says it has sold its 11.3 per cent stake in Orla Mining. The gold miner says it sold the shares to buyers in Canada, the United States and elsewhere for a price of $14.75 per share for a total of $560.5-million. Agnico Eagle was an early-stage investor in Orla and has been a shareholder since it was established in 2017. The company has since grown into an established mid-tier producer. Agnico Eagle chief executive Ammar Al-Joundi says the investment in Orla has been mutually beneficial for both companies. With Orla’s success in evolving into an intermediate producer and in the context of the current gold market, Al-Joundi says now is the right time to sell Agnico Eagle’s stake.

Canadian companies that capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to help combat climate change can be leaders in the young sector if Ottawa helps bolster demand and sets up a supportive market framework, a global industry coalition says. The country has the technology and natural advantages to take the industry beyond its current pilot projects, said the Carbon Business Council, which represents more than 100 carbon-dioxide removal, or CDR, companies worldwide. But it will need federal help unlocking that potential to be a competitive force and tool for helping to reach Canada’s net-zero target. The council lobbies on behalf of cleantech players that extract CO2 from the atmosphere and lock it away in geological formations and by other methods. This differs from capturing it from point sources such as refinery and industrial smokestacks.

Les négociateurs du groupe aéronautique américain Boeing et d’une branche locale du syndicat international des machinistes (IAM) ne sont pas parvenus mardi à s’entendre pour mettre fin à la grève de 3200 ouvriers d’usines d’appareils militaires, malgré le recours à une médiation fédérale. Les deux parties, dans des déclarations distinctes transmises à l’AFP, se sont respectivement rejeté la responsabilité de l’échec de cette seconde séance de tractations depuis le lancement de l’arrêt de travail le 4 août. « Nous espérions qu’une médiation fédérale nous rapprocherait du retour au travail de nos 3200 équipiers », a commenté Dan Gillian, vice-président de la division Air Dominance chez Boeing et haut responsable de l’usine de St. Louis (Missouri), dans un communiqué. « Malheureusement, le syndicat continue de réclamer davantage de tout et nous lui avons répété à maintes reprises que ce n’était pas constructif », a-t-il ajouté, sans autre détail.

Le mineur de cuivre vancouvérois Teck Resources a peut-être accepté de s’associer à une entreprise londonienne plus de deux fois plus grande que lui, mais ses hauts dirigeants ont insisté sur le fait que la société fusionnée conserverait une saveur typiquement canadienne. Teck et Anglo American présentent leur rapprochement de 70 milliards comme une « fusion entre égaux », avec des plans de représentation à peu près égale au sein de la haute direction et du conseil d’administration. Le siège social de la nouvelle société proposée, Anglo Teck, sera transféré à Vancouver et les hauts dirigeants d’Anglo American prévoient de s’y installer. L’accord comprend également des engagements de dépenses de 4,5 milliards au Canada sur cinq ans, mais on ne sait pas exactement quelle part de ces dépenses est nouvelle. Katherine Wetmore, associée au sein du groupe minier du cabinet de conseil KPMG, affirme qu’il semble y avoir un réel engagement envers le marché canadien.

Emmanuel Macron entend nommer rapidement un nouveau premier ministre, après avoir reçu mardi la démission de François Bayrou, renversé la veille par les députés lors d’un vote qui a replongé la France dans une crise politique et budgétaire. Le chef du gouvernement a franchi peu avant 13 h 30 (7 h 30 heure de l’Est) la grille du palais présidentiel à bord de sa voiture de fonction pour un dernier entretien avec le président. Le chef de l’État avait « pris acte » dès lundi du refus des députés d’apporter leur confiance à M. Bayrou et promis de nommer dans les « tout prochains jours » son successeur. Emmanuel Macron est de nouveau confronté au casse-tête qui se pose à lui depuis plus d’un an : trouver un premier ministre susceptible de survivre dans un paysage parlementaire sans majorité, divisé en trois blocs (alliance de gauche, centre droit, extrême droite) depuis la dissolution de juin 2024.

Rupert Murdoch has resolved a bitter succession battle and ensured that his media empire will retain its conservative political slant under eldest son Lachlan after buying out three of his children for $3.3bn. Each of those three Murdoch siblings — James, Elisabeth and Prudence — would receive $1.1bn apiece through a partial share sale by the family trust, according to people familiar with the matter. In exchange, they would give up their ownership interests in News Corp and Fox. Murdoch’s children with Wendi Deng, Chloe and Grace, will join the trust with Lachlan Murdoch.  The settlement means that when Rupert Murdoch dies, Lachlan will inherit control of his sprawling media conglomerate, which includes Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and The Sun in London. The multibillion-dollar payout resolves a decades-long family feud that has mesmerised media and political circles and helped inspire storylines in HBO’s Succession.

Billionaire Daniel Loeb's Third Point Investors Limited on Monday named Gary Dombowsky as its chief executive officer. The appointment comes after the London-listed fund received shareholder approval for its acquisition of Malibu Life Reinsurance SPC in August. The deal, which will see TPIL transform into an insurance holding company that will also buy asset-backed credit and corporate debt, is designed to address valuation concerns in comparison to Loeb's New York-based hedge fund Third Point. Dombowsky, along with two other directors, will be appointed to TPIL's board after the deal is completed and is admitted in the official list of the Financial Conduct Authority, which is expected on September 12.

Democratic lawmakers on the U.S. Senate Banking Committee have demanded that Stephen Miran pledge to resign from his job as chief White House economic adviser before the Republican-controlled panel takes any more steps to advance his nomination for a seat on the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors. Miran said at his confirmation hearing last week he had been legally advised that he need only take an unpaid leave from the White House's Council of Economic Advisors because the Fed job he is seeking only runs through the end of January, and "that is what I would be taking." The Democratic senators on the panel noted that his term could last longer, depending on the time it took to confirm a successor, and said the dual role created a potential conflict between his duty as both a central banker and an adviser to President Donald Trump.

The concept of risk management has seen a rapid evolution in corporates in developed economies. While you could argue that risk management, at least in an intuitive sense, has been with us forever, two things have definitely changed. One is the need for transparency. The second is the expectation that directors must be able to defend their decisions by demonstrating that they made a decent fist of anticipating reasonably foreseeable positive and negative outcomes and made judicious use of resources to optimise them. Boards aspiring to achieve more than their standard oversight obligations should go further and see the quality of their risk and opportunity management as a cornerstone of their “value add” as directors.

Activist hedge fund Elliott Management has built a large stake in payments automation company Bill Holdings, betting the struggling fintech could soon become the latest takeover target in the sector. Paul Singer’s Elliott has built a stake of at least 5 per cent in Bill Holdings, whose market value stood at nearly $5.2bn as of Tuesday’s close, two people familiar with the matter said. Elliott’s position, which makes it one of Bill Holdings’ five largest investors, will add to the pressure on it after activist investor Starboard Value went public last week with an 8.5 per cent stake in the company. Elliott’s investment predates Starboard going public with its stake, the people added. Bill Holdings, which specialises in automating payments for small- to medium-sized companies and processes more than $300bn worth of transactions a year, surged to a market value of $34bn at its peak in 2021. But its shares are down 85 per cent from their high.

OpenAI is set to argue in an Ontario court today that a copyright lawsuit filed by Canadian news publishers involving its ChatGPT generative AI system should be heard in a U.S. courtroom instead. A coalition of Canadian news outlets which includes The Canadian Press, Torstar, The Globe and Mail, Postmedia and CBC/Radio-Canada is suing OpenAI for using news content to train ChatGPT. In what is the first case of its kind in Canada, they argue OpenAI is breaching copyright by scraping large amounts of content from Canadian media, and then profiting from the use of that content without permission or compensation. OpenAI is challenging the jurisdiction of the Ontario Superior Court to hear the case, arguing the company isn’t located in Ontario and doesn’t do business in the province. It’s headquartered in San Francisco and the court documents note all of the companies’ subsidiaries were “incorporated or formed under the laws of Delaware.”

The founder and executive chairman of Strathcona Resources Ltd. says his company’s decision to go public with a takeover offer for MEG Energy Corp. was not well received by its board of directors, who have since accepted a rival offer that he believes is much less valuable. “Sometimes people get grumpy when they are about to lose their job,” Adam Waterous told BNN Bloomberg in an interview Tuesday morning. “(But) boards have fiduciary duties to not think about their personal situation and think about the benefit of the shareholders. Strathcona put the company in play by making the offer, and that was only because we tried to engage privately with the company, but they rejected any kind of dialogue.” Waterous’ comments came a day after his firm revised its initial offer to an all-stock bid of 0.80 of a Strathcona share per MEG share it does not already own, from an earlier proposal made up of a combination of cash and stock.

Microsoft has made changes to its internal communication channels and building security measures following a protest in which current and former workers occupied a top executive’s office. The company has shut down an internal communication channel used by employees to question senior executives and discuss hot-button societal issues, according to an internal post viewed by The Wall Street Journal. It has also restricted employees’ ability to enter certain buildings on its Redmond, Wash., campus, according to people familiar with the matter. On Tuesday, the company also told employees they will need to report to an office three days a week. During the Aug. 26 sit-in, participants entered the office of President Brad Smith and hung banners in protest of the company’s cloud-computing contract with the Israeli government. The company fired five employees following the incident. 

Real estate investor and developer Oxford Properties Group has named Eric Plesman as its next chief executive officer, hiring back the company’s former head of North America from another Ontario pension plan. Mr. Plesman will start on Nov. 3 as president and CEO of Oxford, which is owned by the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System pension fund manager. He is leaving his role as head of global real estate at the $123-billion Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan to return to Oxford, and takes over from executive chair Daniel Fournier. Mr. Fournier, a real estate veteran, came out of retirement in 2023 to lead the company through a turbulent period for real estate markets. Oxford has a $79-billion portfolio of global real estate assets totalling 142 million square feet. It owns notable Canadian properties such as Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre and the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel in Alberta, and has developed prominent office and retail complexes abroad such as Hudson Yards in New York.

The chief executive officer of space technology company MDA Space Ltd. made $35.7-million exercising stock options, three weeks before the company’s share price plunged 25 per cent when U.S. telecom EchoStar Corp. unexpectedly cancelled a major contract. Michael Greenley disclosed the recent stock sale in filings on SEDI, an electronic system maintained by Canadian securities regulators to track stock ownership by directors and officers of public companies. Mr. Greenley exercised about a million stock options on Aug. 18 at a unit price of $9.60, the filings show. He then sold those shares on the public market for $45 apiece. In a statement, MDA spokesperson Amy MacLeod said the company maintains a robust insider trading policy, which sets out rigorous standards and procedures for insider transactions.

Toute décision d’assouplir les droits de douane sur les véhicules électriques en provenance de Chine devra tenir compte des répercussions sur d’autres secteurs, a expliqué mardi le ministre fédéral de l’Agriculture, Heath MacDonald. Le Canada, suivant l’exemple des États-Unis, a imposé des droits de douane de 100 % sur les véhicules électriques chinois l’année dernière et s’est engagé à les réexaminer dans les 12 mois. La Chine a ensuite imposé des droits de douane sur le canola canadien, ce qui a été largement perçu comme une mesure de représailles qui a nui aux producteurs canadiens. Le premier ministre de la Saskatchewan, Scott Moe, actuellement en Chine, et la première ministre de l’Alberta, Danielle Smith, ont demandé à Ottawa de lever ses droits de douane. Interrogé sur la possibilité que le Canada lève ses droits de douane, M. MacDonald a répondu que c’était « certainement une possibilité que nous étudions », mais a averti que d’autres préoccupations commerciales étaient prises en compte.  

Le temps est venu d’ajuster le discours économique axé sur la création d’emplois parce que le marché du travail a changé considérablement au Québec. Depuis 10 ans, le principal bassin de main-d’œuvre a fondu, selon une étude de l’Institut de la statistique du Québec. Entre 2014 et 2024, malgré l’augmentation de la population dans cette catégorie d’âge, le nombre de personnes de 15 à 64 ans disponibles pour travailler a diminué de 234 000. « Le marché n’est plus du tout ce qu’il était il y a dix ans », explique Simon Savard, économiste principal et directeur adjoint de l’Institut du Québec. Entre 2014 et 2024, le taux de chômage au Québec est passé de 7,9 % à 5,6 %. Il y a moins de chômeurs, moins de personnes qui travaillent involontairement à temps partiel et moins de personnes qui désirent travailler, mais qui ne cherchent pas d’emploi pour toutes sortes de raisons dans le bassin principal de main-d’œuvre pour les entreprises, les 15 à 64 ans.

Moins d’un an après sa nomination comme premier ministre, François Bayrou a été forcé de démissionner, lundi, incapable de rallier une majorité de députés derrière lui. À cela s’ajoute une crise sociale avec des manifestations prévues mercredi sous le mot d’ordre « Bloquons tout ». Difficile dans ce contexte de savoir quelle alliance politique organisera la suite. François Bayrou a marqué une pause pour avaler une gorgée d’eau avant de s’élancer sur le terrain glissant de l’Assemblée nationale, lundi après-midi. Combatif, le centriste a déroulé pendant 40 minutes un discours pour convaincre les députés de lui accorder leur confiance. Il a alerté sur les risques d’un pays en « surendettement », dont le « pronostic vital » est « engagé ». Une énième tentative pour défendre son plan d’économie de 44 milliards d’euros pour le budget 2026. Et un échec prévisible : 364 députés ont voté contre la confiance, et seulement 194 pour.

Altai Capital Management is preparing to launch a board fight at OraSure Technologies after the hedge fund, already one of the biggest owners of the medical device maker, increased its holdings, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The hedge fund built up its stake from 3% at the end of June to 5% in recent weeks in OraSure, known for its COVID-19 rapid antigen tests, said the people who are not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The larger stake allows Altai, founded in 2009 by Rishi Bajaj, to press its case for board representation more forcefully, the people said. Investors have grown increasingly frustrated with OraSure in recent months and several have told Reuters that pushing for board representation would be one way to shift strategy, which could boost its stock price. Altai is ratcheting up the pressure after Reuters reported that the company rebuffed a buyout offer from prominent healthcare entrepreneur Ron Zwanziger. 

Starboard Value has nominated four directors, including one of its partners, to the board of BILL Holdings said two people familiar with the matter, as the activist investor pushes the financial automation software company to improve shareholder returns. Starboard, with an 8.5% stake in BILL Holdings, said in a regulatory filing last week that it would like to see the company unlock value for shareholders and is prepared to shake up the board to achieve that goal. Four of the company's 12 directors will stand for election at this year's annual meeting. Starboard may nominate as many as four director candidates before the Saturday deadline, Reuters reported last week. BILL Holdings stock surged nearly 10% after Reuters reported Starboard's stake last week. Starboard nominated four executives who will bring expertise in financial technology, payments, operations and corporate governance, said the people, who asked not to be identified to discuss private matters.