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Torstar surges over first offer price amid rival bid – BNN

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Torstar Corp. rallied to an eight-month high after receiving an unsolicited offer to purchase the company by a private investor group, less than two weeks before shareholders were set to vote on an initial buyout deal by two prominent Canadian business families.

Shares of the Toronto Star parent skyrocketed 16 per cent to 72 cents on Thursday as it resumed trading after saying a competing proposal may result in a “superior offer” to an earlier bid from NordStar Capital LP. While no final decision has been made, Torstar said it’s now in discussions with the new group.

Brothers Matthew Proud, chief executive officer of Dye & Durham Corp., and Tyler Proud, head of Avesdo Inc., are leading the $58 million competing bid, around 72 cents per share, according to several media reports.

NordStar, owned by the Rivett and Bitove families, had offered to buy Torstar for 63 cents a share in cash in May, making for a price tag of $51 million.

The original deal is still “in the best interest of the company,” Torstar’s board said in a press release Thursday. “The board continues to recommend that Torstar shareholders vote in favor of the NordStar transaction.”

The break fee in the NordStar contract is $3.5 million. Currently, the arrangement has the support of Torstar’s board and its largest independent shareholder Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd., ahead of a special meeting on July 21.

Nordstar has no plans to increase its offer. Its bid fully values Torstar based on expenses it will have to incur to grow the company and its newspapers, a spokesperson for the company said in a statement provided to BNN Bloomberg.

NordStar is controlled by Jordan Bitove and Paul Rivett. Rivett was a senior executive at Fairfax, a Toronto-based insurance and investment holding company, when it built its 40 per cent stake in Torstar’s Class B shares. He announced his retirement from the firm in February.

Bitove is a private equity executive whose family was part of the ownership group that brought the Toronto Raptors basketball franchise to the city in the 1990s.

Torstar, which also publishes more than 70 other newspapers, has been unable to turn around years of losses in advertising revenue. Before Nordstar’s offer, Torstar’s shares had slumped almost 80% since the end of 2017.

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TC Energy cuts cost estimate for Southeast Gateway pipeline project in Mexico

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CALGARY – TC Energy Corp. has lowered the estimated cost of its Southeast Gateway pipeline project in Mexico.

It says it now expects the project to cost between US$3.9 billion and US$4.1 billion compared with its original estimate of US$4.5 billion.

The change came as the company reported a third-quarter profit attributable to common shareholders of C$1.46 billion or $1.40 per share compared with a loss of C$197 million or 19 cents per share in the same quarter last year.

Revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 totalled C$4.08 billion, up from C$3.94 billion in the third quarter of 2023.

TC Energy says its comparable earnings for its latest quarter amounted to C$1.03 per share compared with C$1.00 per share a year earlier.

The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 95 cents per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:TRP)

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BCE reports Q3 loss on asset impairment charge, cuts revenue guidance

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BCE Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter as it recorded $2.11 billion in asset impairment charges, mainly related to Bell Media’s TV and radio properties.

The company says its net loss attributable to common shareholders amounted to $1.24 billion or $1.36 per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with a profit of $640 million or 70 cents per share a year earlier.

On an adjusted basis, BCE says it earned 75 cents per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 81 cents per share in the same quarter last year.

“Bell’s results for the third quarter demonstrate that we are disciplined in our pursuit of profitable growth in an intensely competitive environment,” BCE chief executive Mirko Bibic said in a statement.

“Our focus this quarter, and throughout 2024, has been to attract higher-margin subscribers and reduce costs to help offset short-term revenue impacts from sustained competitive pricing pressures, slow economic growth and a media advertising market that is in transition.”

Operating revenue for the quarter totalled $5.97 billion, down from $6.08 billion in its third quarter of 2023.

BCE also said it now expects its revenue for 2024 to fall about 1.5 per cent compared with earlier guidance for an increase of zero to four per cent.

The company says the change comes as it faces lower-than-anticipated wireless product revenue and sustained pressure on wireless prices.

BCE added 33,111 net postpaid mobile phone subscribers, down 76.8 per cent from the same period last year, which was the company’s second-best performance on the metric since 2010.

It says the drop was driven by higher customer churn — a measure of subscribers who cancelled their service — amid greater competitive activity and promotional offer intensity. BCE’s monthly churn rate for the category was 1.28 per cent, up from 1.1 per cent during its previous third quarter.

The company also saw 11.6 per cent fewer gross subscriber activations “due to more targeted promotional offers and mobile device discounting compared to last year.”

Bell’s wireless mobile phone average revenue per user was $58.26, down 3.4 per cent from $60.28 in the third quarter of the prior year.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:BCE)

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Canada Goose reports Q2 revenue down from year ago, trims full-year guidance

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TORONTO – Canada Goose Holdings Inc. trimmed its financial guidance as it reported its second-quarter revenue fell compared with a year ago.

The luxury clothing company says revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 29 totalled $267.8 million, down from $281.1 million in the same quarter last year.

Net income attributable to shareholders amounted to $5.4 million or six cents per diluted share, up from $3.9 million or four cents per diluted share a year earlier.

On an adjusted basis, Canada Goose says it earned five cents per diluted share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 16 cents per diluted share a year earlier.

In its outlook, Canada Goose says it now expects total revenue for its full financial year to show a low-single-digit percentage decrease to low-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a low-single-digit increase.

It also says it now expects its adjusted net income per diluted share to show a mid-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a percentage increase in the mid-teens.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:GOOS)

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