Dr. Norman Keevil during a news conference at the TSX Broadcast and Conference Centre in downtown Toronto on May 8, 2006.Louie Palu/The Globe and Mail
Norman B. Keevil, the controlling shareholder of Teck Resources Ltd., TECK-B-T will not exercise his extraordinary veto power to stop the sale of the mining giant’s proposed new metals division to a foreign buyer if Teck’s board is in favour, telling The Globe and Mail that he won’t be “swimming against the tide.”
Through his stranglehold on Teck’s super voting Class A shares, which carry 100 votes apiece, the company’s chairman emeritus can, in theory, block any takeover deal that is in front of the board.
But Dr. Keevil, 85, made it clear in an interview that the spirit of the A shares is not to satisfy the whims of one man. They are meant, instead, as an extra set of eyes for the board over strategic decisions, and as a mechanism to give it pause before acting.
“The A shares are like the governor in an engine. So if the engine starts to move too fast, they can slow things down a little bit, so people can think about it, and act responsibly. But the A shares can’t go against what the majority of what the B shares want to do. That just isn’t there.”
Teck’s Class B shares carry just one vote apiece. Only once has Dr. Keevil believed the board made the wrong strategic decision: its proposed acquisition of Fording Canadian Coal Trust in 2008. But even though he was opposed to the deal, and voted against it as a board member, he did not use his super voting A shares to torpedo theacquisition, and it went through.
“We’ve never once, not in 50 years, gone against what the board wants to do,” he said.
After Switzerland’s Glencore PLC GLNCY made its US$23.1-billion takeover bid for Teck last week, Dr. Keevil told The Globe that he was opposing the deal on economic nationalist grounds, saying that “Canada is not for sale.”
On Friday, Dr. Keevil said that while he would still not like to see Teck fall into foreign hands, if the board, management and a majority of the B shareholders decide they want to sell to a foreign giant, he would not stop it.
“If everybody wants to go the other direction, I can’t go swimming against the tide,” he said.
Dr. Keevil also doubled down on his distaste for the Glencore deal. He said he’s in complete agreement with the board’s rationale for rejecting the deal, namely that exposing shareholders to Glencore’s ESG-unfriendly thermal coal and oil businesses is a bad idea.
“There’s no reason why we can’t sit down after the separation with Glencore, or with anybody else, and look at possibilities, whether that be at the asset level or an [outright acquisition].”
Many analysts expect Teck Metals, which will hold the company’s critical minerals assets, to generate multiple takeover approaches from bigger miners.
Dr. Keevil, in the meantime, is confident that the B shareholders will vote for Teck’s planned split, and he challenged a report on Friday that the company’s biggest B shareholder, Chinese state-controlled company China Investment Corp. (CIC), is poised to vote down the split.
“We have talked to them,” he said. “And that’s certainly not our impression, but time will tell.”
CIC did not respond to a request for comment.
Glencore CEO Gary Nagle on Friday meanwhile continued his quest to try to sway Teck’s Bshareholders to side with Glencore, and vote down Teck’s proposed split, which is scheduledfor a shareholder vote on April 26.
“We’re open to engage with Dr. Keevil, talk, sit down with him, sit down with the board, sit down with management, and engage and understand concerns and issues,” Mr. Nagle said in an interview on Friday.
Mr. Nagle would not comment on whether Glencore will increase the value of its proposed takeover, but he ruled out any notion of his company paying all cash.
“That goes against the concept of a merger, and we want shareholders to participate in the terrific upside that we bring, and the synergies that we’re creating.”
Mr. Nagle said that he had met with several large institutional shareholders who hold B shares and he expressed optimism that they would vote against Teck’s deal as a show of support for the Glencore approach.
“Multiple shareholders have said they’re going to vote against it,” he said referring to Teck’s planned split.
When pressed to reveal who those shareholders were, Mr. Nagle declined to comment.
Under Glencore’s proposed plan, it would split itself into two businesses, one a massive coal company containing its thermal coal along with Teck’s metallurgical coal, and a separate metals business that would also hold Glencore’s energy trading assets.
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
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