Tausi Insider

Indigenous investors are lining up to bid on Canadian pipelines TC Energy Corp. put up for auction this week as part of a $5-billion asset sale program. On Wednesday, TC Energy chief executive François Poirier outlined plans to sell several projects by the end of 2023 to help fund the Calgary-based company’s expansion, which is projected to cost $34-billion. Along with raising cash, he said streamlining one of North America’s largest pipeline operators would drive “simplicity of corporate structure and the impact on our ability to achieve our sustainability goals.” While Mr. Poirier steered clear of naming specific pipelines, analysts said two Alberta oil sands projects are candidates for sale. In a report, analyst Robert Hope at Scotiabank predicted TC Energy will sell its 50-per-cent stake in the 460-kilometre Grand Rapids pipeline, which connects refineries near Edmonton to oil sands properties north of Fort McMurray, and the 72-kilometre White Spruce pipeline, which feeds into Gr...

The federal government has rolled out $800-million for clean fuel projects, the first round of cash from a $1.5-billion fund launched by Ottawa in 2021 to help accelerate Canada’s plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the fight against climate change. Canada’s Clean Fuels Fund was launched with the aim of increasing the production of clean fuels such as hydrogen, renewable diesel and natural gas, cellulosic ethanol, synthetic fuels and sustainable aviation fuel. The idea is to help clean fuel project proponents address barriers to growth by taking the risk out of the capital investments required to build new facilities, or expand existing ones. For now, the federal government is remaining mum on the details of who exactly gets how much cash, as it undertakes negotiations to finalize the terms of funding for each project. Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said Monday that details of the projects will be released in the coming weeks, but added they include production f...

Attabotics CEO Scott Gravelle, pictured in 2020, says the warehouse robotics company is looking to introduce a recurring revenue model where customers pay as they use the technology, in order to provide a stream of cash that is steadier than one-time installation contracts. Jeff McIntosh/Tausi Insider Export Development Canada has led a US$72-million investment in Calgary warehouse robotics startup Attabotics Inc., part of a recent strategy by the Crown corporation to boost support for globally-minded medium-sized companies. The federal government’s export financing arm is leading the investment, while Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, which led a US$50-million of convertible debt financing to Attabotics in 2020, has converted its stake into equity and invested another US$11-million as part of this round. It’s the first deal involving Teachers’ venture growth unit since its $95-million investment in cryptocurrency exchange operator FTX vaporized last week. Other Attabotics investors in...

Defence lawyer Gary Martin, right, representing Yuesheng Wang, and Crown Prosecutor Marc Cigana leave after speaking to the media following a hearing at the courthouse in Longueuil, Que., on Nov. 15. Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press Wedged between farm fields and a highway on Montreal’s south shore near Varennes, Hydro-Québec’s Center of Excellence in Transportation Electrification and Energy Storage is, by many accounts, one of the province’s top research hubs. There, electrical engineers and chemists in white lab coats spend their days trying to unlock the keys to a revolution in battery technology. But for the better part of its five-year existence, this low-rise, concrete slab of a building was also the site of a major breach of Canada’s industrial brain power, according to police. At the centre of it: a researcher named Yuesheng Wang, who police say gathered trade secrets for the benefit of China. Mr. Wang was arrested by the RCMP Monday and appeared in a Longueuil, Que., court b...

Elon Musk speaks during an event at the E3 gaming convention, in Los Angeles, Calif., on June 13, 2019. Mike Blake/Reuters Put off by Elon Musk’s muscular management style? Move to us! That’s the pitch being used by talent-starved technology firms trying to lure thousands of former Twitter Inc TWTR-N employees laid off by the social media company under its new owner. Twitter has fired top executives and enforced steep job cuts with little warning following Musk’s tumultuous takeover of the social media platform. About half of the work force – around 3,700 employees – has been laid off. Hundreds more are reported to have quit as a result of his sweeping reforms. On Monday, the head of French operations was the latest senior manager to leave. Spying opportunity, some companies are now trying to pick up experienced engineering talent by appealing to their disdain for the methods of the world’s richest person. Katie Burke, chief people officer at U.S. software company Hubspot, blasted Mu...

Sam Bankman-Fried speaks at the Crypto Bahamas conference in Nassau on April 27. ERIKA P. RODRIGUEZ /The New York Times News Service Chris Clearfield is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Clearfield Group. Andras Tilcsik is a professor with the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. They are the authors of Meltdown: What Plane Crashes, Oil Spills, and Dumb Business Decisions Can Teach Us About How to Succeed at Work and at Home . The bankruptcy of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange displays the classic elements of the failure of what is known as a “complex” system. It’s like the remake of a famous movie franchise: a story with the same plot and basic characters, only played by different actors. The same factors that underlie the collapse of FTX are at the root of the financial crisis, the Enron bankruptcy, and frauds such as Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and Elizabeth Holmes’s Theranos. These factors are also at the root of plane crashes, ...

Manulife Financial Corp MFC-T will outsource its property operations in Canada to commercial real estate broker JLL Inc as part of a longer-term strategy to focus on its entrepreneurial investment management unit, Canada’s biggest life insurer said Thursday. The change to a new structure will result in Manulife Investment Management, which overseas the real estate portfolio, shedding 50 jobs, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday. The sources declined to be identified because the details are not public. Manulife Investment Management, which manages about C$807-billion ($605-billion), benefited from a favorable credit market experience in the latest quarter, but that was partially offset by lower-than-expected returns from its real estate business, Manulife Chief Financial Officer Philip Witherington told analysts during the post earnings earlier this month. Toronto-based Manulife will outsource leasing services to Chicago-based JLL under a short-term contract,...

A tradesperson works on a balcony at a condo tower under construction, in Burnaby, B.C., on March 2. DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press Brent Sawchyn is chief executive officer of PC Urban Properties, a real estate development company based in Vancouver. Housing supply and affordability is one of the leading issues across Canada, and the situation is particularly dire in Vancouver. We all recognize this, particularly developers, who for the most part are trying to be part of the solution. Here’s the foundation of the problem. With increasing development cost charges, property taxes, municipal charges, utility costs and GST on new rental buildings, developers typically spend at least 15 per cent to 20 per cent of our total project budget on these government-level taxes. And with all the red tape, we face a four- to six-year pathway to deliver much-needed rental housing. For all of that, municipalities and the provincial and federal governments pay lip service to do more to help, but in re...

An SSE vehicle is parked outside the Pitlochry Dam hydro electric power station, in Pitlochry, Scotland, on Nov. 8, 2017. RUSSELL CHEYNE/Reuters British power generator and network operator SSE said on Friday it will sell a 25 per cent stake in its power transmission network business to Canada’s Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board for £1.47-billion ($1.78-billion), as part of its efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The stake sale of SSEN Transmission is part of a plan SSE outlined last November when it pledged to invest £12.5-billion in clean energy projects. So far, SSE has sold a 33.3 per cent stake in gas distribution operator Scotia Gas Networks for nearly £1.29-billion as part of a bid to focus on renewable power and networks. “With significant growth forecast in transmission, bringing in Ontario Teachers’ as a minority stake partner will help fund our ambitious investment plans as we continue to deliver a network for net zero emissions across the north of Scotland,” SSEN ...

Former Amazon.com Inc. AMZN-Q workers and labour organizers visited some of the e-commerce giant’s Quebec locations Friday as part of a global movement urging the company to stop “squeezing” workers, communities and the planet. Mostafa Henaway, a former Amazon worker and labour activist with the Immigrant Workers Center, said he and others would approach workers at the YUL2 and DXT6 facilities in Lachine to remind them of their rights and encourage their employer to do better. “We’re out here today with other Amazon associates around the world to say enough is enough,” said Henaway, who worked at the DTX4 delivery centre in Laval, Que. “At what cost is fast and free shipping?” The visit timed to Black Friday – one of the Seattle-based firm’s busiest periods – is meant to push the company to pay fair wages, taxes and better account for its affect on the environment. It’s part of the Make Amazon Pay movement, which will see Amazon workers and labour rights groups in at least 30 countri...

As TC Energy Corp TRP-T prepares to unload C$5-billion (US$3.7-billion) in assets next year, investors and analysts say the North American pipeline operator has plenty of options without touching its core gas business. Chief executive Francois Poirier cleared up any ambiguities this week when asked how much of TC’s portfolio is in the shop window. “I remember reading a book once called Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers ,” Mr. Poirier said at the company’s investor day. “There are no sacred cows.” Calgary, Alta.-based TC is widely known for its Keystone oil pipeline, a critical artery for moving Canadian oil to U.S. refiners that dominated headlines over the past decade for an expansion that ultimately failed. But moving natural gas around the United States, Canada and Mexico is the bigger part of TC’s business. TC should consider selling Keystone along with its stake in Ontario’s Bruce Power nuclear facility, since they are not part of its core business, said Rob Thummel, senior port...

National Bank of Canada no longer allows customers to transfer their existing mortgages after purchasing new properties, meaning clients hoping to move to new homes can’t hold on to low interest rates locked in before the recent surge in borrowing costs. The change, which applies nationwide, was implemented on June 30 as part of “a regular review” of the bank’s service offerings, National Bank spokesperson Alexandre Guay said in an e-mail. The lender did not answer a question about whether it had alerted clients who might be affected by the decision, but Mr. Guay noted that the move “did not involve any modifications to mortgage contracts, which must be communicated formally.” In an e-mail to a borrower reviewed by Tausi Insider, National Bank said it had stopped offering rollover mortgages, which it described as a “financing solution” that allowed borrowers to transfer the interest rate, remaining balance and remaining term of an existing mortgage to a new loan. The feature, which i...

Indigenous communities on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border are trying to build an alliance with U.S. Congress and the Biden administration in hopes of pressuring Ottawa into a bipartisan effort to confront toxic trans-border mining runoff. Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press In a city of pinstripes and partisan power brokers, Mike Allison sticks out like a sore thumb. He’s in the wrong place – and he knows it. “I shouldn’t be here,” the denim-clad Indigenous elder suddenly says, fighting tears beneath the brim of his trademark cowboy hat. “I should be out on the land, working with my kids, teaching them values. I should be teaching them kids how to work with the environment, not fight for it.” Instead, the Upper Similkameen Indian Band councillor is in a downtown D.C. boardroom, gearing up for a second day of meetings with State Department officials, bureaucrats, diplomats and members of Congress. Fighting for the environment is exactly what Allison, whose British Columbia First Nat...

Emergency crews work to clean up a leak from the Keystone pipeline, in Washington County, Kan., on Dec. 9. DRONE BASE/Reuters The oil spilled from TC Energy Corp’s ruptured Keystone pipeline was diluted bitumen, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Thursday, adding complications to the cleanup. The 622,000 barrels per day (bpd) pipeline was shut since last week after it spilled 14,000 barrels of oil in rural Kansas, including into a creek. The parts of the pipeline carrying oil from Alberta, Canada, to refineries in Illinois opened on Wednesday, leaving the ruptured part that extends from south of Steele City, Nebraska to a storage hub in Cushing, Oklahoma closed. Bitumen from Canada’s oil sands is a dense, thick form of oil that shippers dilute with lighter oils so it can move through pipelines. The resulting product is called dilbit for short. A 2016 National Academy of Sciences study for the U.S. Department of Transportation examined whether transporting dilbit c...

The U.S. Trade Representative’s office said on Friday it is extending China “Section 301″ tariff exclusions for another nine months on 352 Chinese import product categories that were set to expire at the end of 2022. The tariff exclusions, which include industrial components such as pumps and electric motors, some car parts and chemicals, bicycles and vacuum cleaners, were reinstated in March by U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai as part of her strategy to confront Chinese trade practices. USTR said the extension “will help align further consideration of these exclusions with the ongoing comprehensive four year review” of the Section 301 tariffs imposed by former U.S. President Donald Trump on some $370 billion worth of Chinese imports. The trade office said it is collecting comments in the tariff review through Jan. 17, 2023. https://www.tausiinsider.com/u-s-extends-tariff-exclusions-on-352-chinese-import-categories-for-nine-months/?feed_id=327684&_unique_id=641714e63b...