We take you back to early September and a brief review of the 24-hour Quebec Inc. torpedo of a proposed takeover of the Montreal-based Cogeco telecom companies — 24 hours that highlight investor, governance and competition issues. In the early evening of Tuesday, Sept. 1, Dexter Goei, CEO of the New York-based broadband company Altice […]

Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. will let the sun set on the special voting rights held by its four founders. Executive chairman Alain Bouchard says that he and the three other men who built the Canadian convenience-store empire will let their 25-year-old special stock rights, which give them control over the company, expire next year as scheduled […]

The move by Rogers Communications Inc. and Altice USA to launch a hostile takeover bid for Cogeco Communications Inc. and parent Cogeco Inc. without the support of the Quebec companies’ controlling shareholder looks like a long-shot gamble to many experts. But they say similar past deals for family-controlled companies show there can be a path to victory […]

In a surprising move, Rogers and Altice USA made an offer to buy Cogeco and Cogeco Communications and split their assets between them. If Cogeco were a typical Canadian corporation with a one-share, one-vote capital structure, the would-be buyers could disregard any reticence or opposition by the board of directors and transmit their offer directly […]

Act I: In July 2012, the American corporation, Lowe’s, makes some noise about acquiring RONA, the Quebec-based chain of hardware stores. Coming on the eve of an election campaign in Quebec, the prospect of a foreign acquisition of a “strategic” Quebec company generates strong reactions and a sort of political consensus: “The Quebec government must […]

The fate of Air Canada’s $720-million takeover bid for Transat A.T. Inc. rests with regulators after shareholders overwhelmingly approved the acquisition offer Friday. In a special meeting, shareholders of the Quebec-based tour operator voted 94.77 per cent in favour of accepting the $18-per-share transaction from the country’s largest airline. The deal will narrow the field […]

Mergers and acquisitions are well-choreographed ballets. Both companies call on financial and legal advisers. The board of the target company sets up an independent committee, which promptly retains its own independent legal and financial advisers. Financial advisers produce an opinion letter assuring all and sundry that the price offered is a fair one for the […]

In March 2014, CEOs of many Fortune 500 corporations received a letter that started with these words: “We are preoccupied… that too many companies have cut capital expenditure and even increased debt to boost dividends and increase share buybacks. We certainly believe that returning cash to shareholders should be part of a balanced capital strategy; however, when […]

For many family businesses, control of long-term direction and management of the family corporation are key issues, particularly during times of growth or periods of succession. The Institute for Governance of Private and Public Organizations (“IGOPP”) recently published a new policy paper that should be of interest to family businesses and their advisors in planning the capital […]

[ … ] The Quebec government has set aside $1-billion to encourage strategically important businesses to keep their head offices in the province, a measure Finance Minister Eric Girard says he could use to protect the Montreal executive suites of SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. Mr. Girard announced the measure Thursday in his Coalition Avenir Québec government’s […]

In Ottawa, there appears to be little sympathy these days for SNC-Lavalin, the giant engineering corporation facing prosecution for bribery schemes in Libya. The company was hoping to strike a deal with federal prosecutors in order to avoid a trial. If guilty, it would be cut off from lucrative Canadian government contracts for a decade. […]

Dual-class share structures have drawn the ire of some investors, citing concerns with shareholder rights. For more on this and why he thinks there’s a place for dual-class shares, BNN Bloomberg spoke with Yvan Allaire, executive chair at the Institute for Governance of Private and Public Organizations. To view the interview, please click here

[ … ] Following an examination of Canadian industrial companies, Allaire (2016) suggested that financial performances of these Canadian DCS companies would outperform the peers over 5-, 10-, and 15-year periods (see Exhibit 1). Allaire considered that the superior financial performance would help these firms maintain their headquarters in Canada and argued that such share structures […]

In the wake of several high-profile takeovers of Quebec companies, such as Rona Inc. and Cirque du Soleil, the provincial government is implementing new measures aimed at promoting the growth of local businesses while maintaining corporate head offices in the province. Premier Philippe Couillard’s government said Tuesday it would set up a watchdog group to […]

Once upon a time, the governance of publicly listed corporations was a friendly, fraternal affair with few requirements and little risk. Then, during the 1980s, a group of funds (leveraged buyout funds) sprouted up claiming that this sort of governance deprived shareholders of the full economic value of the business they had invested in. Cozy […]

More than six months after the fact, the sale of Rona to Lowe’s, a U.S. corporation, continues to generate political controversy. This raises the question: how many large Quebec corporations are vulnerable to a foreign takeover with the consequent loss, sooner or later, of the strategic functions associated with their head offices. Such a takeover […]