The purchase offer for Cirque du Soleil from its secured creditors risks eliminating Quebec’s longstanding presence as a shareholder and causing losses of tens of millions of dollars to two of the province’s largest institutional investors. A US$1.2-billion takeover proposal by a group of debt holders, which was approved on Friday as the benchmark bid […]
Even before the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. employers were beefing up their financial well-being offerings and starting to see positive results, according to a new survey by Buck. The survey, which polled more than 150 U.S. organizations, found employees’ financial stress is a top motivator for companies to invest in financial well-being programs. As well, 40 […]
Nearly two million Canadian workers could remain unemployed this year, according to forecasts in the federal government’s long-awaited “fiscal snapshot.” The document released Wednesday details how the Trudeau Liberals see the coronavirus pandemic dragging down the domestic economy and sending the deficit to a historic $343.2 billion. The economic and fiscal report lays out the […]
Along with the rest of the globe, Canada isn’t likely to see the V-shaped recovery that institutional investors were hoping for as it stares down the recessionary road ahead. “Canadian activity was also on the softening path even at the end of last year,” says Irene Lauro, an economist at Schroders. “And this is because […]
The outbreak of the novel coronavirus has triggered major corrections in the equity, commodity and debt markets as participants try to gauge the full extent of its impact. It is times like these when the advantages of insurance-linked securities become apparent again. Insurance-linked securities are financial instruments whose performance is driven by the occurrence of […]
Last week marked the beginning of an unprecedented one-year program through which the Bank of Canada is purchasing corporate bonds. The program, originally announced on April 15, aims to support the corporate debt market’s liquidity and “proper functioning.” It involves TD Asset Management purchasing bonds through a tender process on the secondary market on behalf […]
Canada’s economy had its worst quarterly showing since 2009 through the first three months of 2020 owing to the novel coronavirus, Statistics Canada said Friday, warning an even steeper drop may be coming. Gross domestic product fell at an annualized rate of 8.2 per cent in the first quarter, including a 7.2-per-cent drop in March […]
The Investment Management Corp. of Ontario is committing US$250 million to Apollo Global Management Inc.’s new Accord Fund III series B. The fund is focused on acquiring credits that have traded down due to liquidity-driven selling and non-economic reasons. “This is an example of IMCO adapting to market conditions and exploiting our liquidity very quickly so that clients have […]
Even before the coronavirus began affecting capital markets, fixed income investors were becoming more risk averse, according to Invesco’s latest survey. Close to half (43 per cent) of investors surveyed in late 2019 said they felt the then economic cycle had a year or less left to run and were adapting their portfolios accordingly. In some cases, this change […]
Financial markets are showing signs of concern about how well companies can weather the coronavirus economic crisis, the Bank of Canada said in a report outlining issues the pandemic is having on business and household debt. The central bank has spent the last two months making a flurry of policy decisions that include slashing the […]