Tausi Insider

IGM Financial Inc. IGM-T is ramping up its technology spending by purchasing a minority stake in Nesto Inc., an online mortgage broker that has been steadily growing as Canadians look for automated services with lower rates when purchasing a home. On Tuesday, Montreal-based Nesto announced it has secured $80-million in capital, led by investment giant IGM Financial, a subsidiary of Power Corp. of Canada POW-T. The financing was also backed by Portage Ventures, the venture capital arm of Power’s Sagard Holdings alternative asset investment unit, Sagard-backed Diagram Ventures, National Bank of Canada’s venture capital arm – NAventures – and BMO Capital Partners. Also joining the funding round were Michael Paulus and Michael Rowell, co-founders of Assurance IQ Inc., a U.S. online insurance seller purchased by Prudential Financial Inc. in 2019. IGM Financial’s investment is a sign that Power-backed entities continue to push funding into financial technology companies despite the plummet...

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau bump elbows after the federal government unveiled COVID-19 spending plans. Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press Jason Clemens and Jake Fuss are economists with the Fraser Institute. An Auditor-General’s report recently cited billions in questionable spending in Ottawa’s management of handouts related to COVID-19. But while the report certainly raises questions (again) about competence, it should not mislead Canadians into believing that such failure is unique to the Trudeau government. We’ve seen much of the same from previous administrations. This is a larger problem of systemic government failure . This new assessment is damning indeed. Auditor-General Karen Hogan found $4.6-billion in overpayments to ineligible recipients, and recommended that the government investigate the nature of another $27.4-billion in spending. The AG also criticized Ottawa for failing to require social insurance numbers for workers in fi...

IGM Financial Inc. IGM-T is ramping up its technology spending by purchasing a minority stake in Nesto Inc., an online mortgage broker that has been steadily growing as Canadians look for automated services with lower rates when purchasing a home. On Tuesday, Montreal-based Nesto announced it has secured $80-million in capital, led by investment giant IGM Financial, a subsidiary of Power Corp. of Canada POW-T. The financing was also backed by Portage Ventures, the venture capital arm of Power’s Sagard Holdings alternative asset investment unit, Sagard-backed Diagram Ventures, National Bank of Canada’s venture capital arm – NAventures – and BMO Capital Partners. Also joining the funding round were Michael Paulus and Michael Rowell, co-founders of Assurance IQ Inc., a U.S. online insurance seller purchased by Prudential Financial Inc. in 2019. IGM Financial’s investment is a sign that Power-backed entities continue to push funding into financial technology companies despite the plummet...

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau bump elbows after the federal government unveiled COVID-19 spending plans. Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press Jason Clemens and Jake Fuss are economists with the Fraser Institute. An Auditor-General’s report recently cited billions in questionable spending in Ottawa’s management of handouts related to COVID-19. But while the report certainly raises questions (again) about competence, it should not mislead Canadians into believing that such failure is unique to the Trudeau government. We’ve seen much of the same from previous administrations. This is a larger problem of systemic government failure . This new assessment is damning indeed. Auditor-General Karen Hogan found $4.6-billion in overpayments to ineligible recipients, and recommended that the government investigate the nature of another $27.4-billion in spending. The AG also criticized Ottawa for failing to require social insurance numbers for workers in fi...