A car is charged at a station for electric vehicles on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on May 1, 2019.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Stellantis NV STLA-N says it will spend $3.6-billion to retool its Ontario plants to make zero-emissions vehicles – the latest announcement from an automaker aimed at hastening the Canadian auto sector’s shift away from internal combustion engines.
With up to $1-billion in funding from the federal and Ontario governments, Stellantis plans to refit its Windsor and Brampton plants to make hybrid or electric cars and expand to three shifts a day. The automaker said it will also build its first North American battery lab in Windsor.
At a news conference announcing the investment on Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the two plants will become global leaders. He said the retooling will be beneficial to both Canadians and the environment. “Not only are we growing a world-leading auto industry creating hundreds of jobs, and securing thousands more, we’re keeping our air clean by building and driving more EVs here at home,” he said.
Mark Stewart, Stellantis North America’s chief operating officer, said the move supports the company’s global push to offer 25 electric vehicles that will account for 53 per cent of sales by 2030. The automaker is spending $45-billion through 2025 as it races with rivals to meet consumer demand and government limits on greenhouse gas emissions.
This is “more good news and stability for Canadian operations,” Mr. Stewart told reporters at the news conference in Windsor.
The Canadian auto sector is in the midst of an electric evolution. In March, the federal and provincial governments said they would give hundreds of millions of dollars to Stellantis and LG Energy Solution for a $5-billion plant in Windsor that will make batteries for electric vehicles. The investment is the largest in the history of Canada’s auto industry.
Other automakers in Canada are gearing up for an electrified future, too. Ford Motor Co. plans to produce electric cars at its Oakville, Ont., factory by 2024, with a $1.8-billion investment that includes $580-million in taxpayer money. By December, General Motors is set to begin making the electric cargo van the BrightDrop EV600 at its retooled plant in Ingersoll, Ont.
GM and POSCO Chemicals are also building a factory in Bécancour, Que., that will make material for the batteries that power GM’s electric lineup. This includes the Chevrolet Silverado EV, GMC Hummer EV and Cadillac Lyriq.
“We’re in this really pivotal moment, where Canada is coming back and we’re regaining our position as a top auto-manufacturing country,” said Joanna Kyriazis, a senior policy adviser at Clean Energy Canada.
While Ms. Kyriazis welcomed Stellantis’ latest announcement, she said she would have liked to see the automaker commit to a vision for its Ontario plants focused squarely on electric vehicles rather than moving toward what Stellantis called a “flexible multienergy vehicle architecture.”
The Prime Minister’s presence in Windsor on Monday is in line with his government’s efforts of late to show that it is serious about forcing a faster change in Canadians’ driving habits and reducing the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.
In their March emissions-reduction plan and their April budget, the federal Liberals detailed initiatives aimed at greening the transportation sector, which accounts for more than a quarter of the country’s emissions.
Despite pushback from automakers, the government said it will ramp up its ambitions when it comes to sales mandates for zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs), including by introducing a new short-term target of 20 per cent of all light-duty vehicle sales by 2026. That will climb to 60 per cent in 2030 and 100 per cent in 2035. The government said it wants to see ZEVs make up 35 per cent of medium- and heavy-duty vehicle sales by 2030.
In Canada, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and battery electric vehicles made up 6.2 per cent of new vehicle registrations in the fourth quarter of 2021, up from 4 per cent in the same period in 2020 and 2.9 per cent in the same period in 2019.
To make the move away from internal combustion engines more affordable for Canadians, the Liberals are expanding the incentives program for ZEVs to include more expensive options, such as vans, trucks and SUVs.
Mr. Stewart of Stellantis said the minivan plant in Windsor will be retooled in 2023 to make “multienergy” vehicle components for several models. The Brampton plant, which currently builds muscle cars, will be refit to make electric components and one electric vehicle. Mr. Stewart said it is too early to say which vehicles will be made in Ontario.
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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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