Follow the money: Green investment wave, Pfizer buys cancer drug developer and Blockstream becomes a unicorn - Financial Post

These are the deals and financings that caught our eye this week

Author of the article:

Stefanie Marotta

Pfizer Inc. is buying Canadian drug developer Trillium Therapeutics Inc. in a US$2.26-billion deal. Photo by Yves Herman/Reuters files

A green investment wave is washing over Canada. Canadian cleantech financing surged 335 per cent, setting the sector up for a record year. The growing sector secured $3.09 billion in equity financings during the first six months of 2021.

Pfizer Inc. is buying Canadian drug developer Trillium Therapeutics Inc. in a US$2.26-billion deal, adding to its roster of blood cancer therapies. Pfizer acquired a US$25 million stake in Trillium last year and plans to buy the remaining outstanding shares for US$18.50 each, a 203.8 per cent premium on the stock’s closing price on Friday.

Wealthsimple Cash became the first Canadian payment service to be integrated into Twitter’s Tip Jar, which allows users to transfer money to each other. Tip Jar, which launched in beta mode in May, operates with U.S.-based PayPal, Venmo, Bandcamp, Patreon and Square’s Cash App.

Brookfield Asset Management Inc. is in talks to acquire at least US$1 billion in student-housing properties through a joint venture with Scion Group LLC. The deal would be the alternative-asset manager’s first bet on the U.S. sector.

British Columbia-based Blockstream joined the ranks of Canada’s unicorns after raising US$210 million, valuing the bitcoin infrastructure company at US$4 billion.

Billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit is going public via a merger with a SPAC. The deal with the blank-cheque firm values the small satellite launch service at US$3.2 billion.

Buyout firm Apollo Global Management Inc. is raising a US$500-million fund to invest in SPACs. The fund is one of the first of its kind, and it’s the New York company’s most recent move into the investment trend.

Baseball card maker Topps shelved its deal to go public through a merger with a SPAC as Major League Baseball decided not to renew its 70-year old trading card partnership with the firm. The MLB instead entered into an exclusive deal with a new company controlled by retailer Fanatics Inc.

Financial Post

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