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CAE Inc.’s CAE-T share price surged after the company reported strong civil and defence performance in its second quarter results. The Montreal-based builder of flight and health simulators saw its share price increase 18.17 per cent to $28.42 on the TSX at midday trading. CAE says net income attributable to equity holders was $44.5-million, or 14 cents per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30, up from $14.0-million or 4 cents per share in the same quarter last year. CAE attributes a strong consolidated-level performance in the second quarter to double-digit growth in the civil segment, better results in defence and renewed profitability in healthcare. The company reaffirmed its outlook for the fiscal year after reducing the compound growth rate to mid-20 per cent last quarter. On an adjusted basis, it earned 19 cents per share and $993.2-million in revenue, compared to an average analyst expectation of 17 cents per share and $949-million, according to estimates compiled by financial...

The parent company of Tim Hortons' is offering its new executive chair a package of stock options and shares that could potentially be worth nearly US$400-million. Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press I ate at a Burger King in rural Montana earlier this fall. The wait to order was long. My burger was overcooked. My mother got the wrong order, and it was cold as well. It was, she says, the worst fast-food meal she’d ever had. I don’t blame the workers; the restaurant was understaffed, and they are underpaid. Yet those front-line workers at Burger King, Tim Horton’s, and all the other chains in the Restaurant Brands International Inc. QSR-T portfolio are the most important driver of customer happiness. Yet once again, the company is going to give a gargantuan pay package to its executive class, leaving crumbs for the underpaid and overworked people who serve us. Not even the common shareholders of the company are benefiting from the largesse. RBI said Wednesday it has lured Patrick D...

Blackstone Inc limited withdrawals from its $69 billion real estate income trust (REIT) on Thursday after receiving too many redemption requests, an unprecedented blow to a franchise that helped it turn into an asset management behemoth. The curbs in redemptions came because they hit pre-set limits, rather than Blackstone setting the redemption limits on the day. Nonetheless, they fuelled investor concerns about the future of the REIT, which makes up about 17% of Blackstone’s earnings. Blackstone shares ended trading down 7.1% on the news. Investors in the REIT, which is not publicly traded, have been growing concerned that Blackstone has been slow to adjust the vehicle’s valuation to that of publicly-traded REITs, which have taken a hit amid rising interest rates, a source close to the fund said. Rising interest rates weigh on real estate values because they make financing them more expensive. Blackstone has reported a 9.3% year-to-date return for its REIT, net of fees, while the pu...

An H&M store in New York, on Nov. 15, 2019. Mike Segar/Reuters Shares in H&M, the world’s second-biggest fashion retailer, fell almost 6 per cent on Thursday as net sales for the September-November quarter failed to match a recent pick up in some analysts’ expectations. H&M, which has struggled to keep up with bigger rival Zara, last month became the first big European retailer to lay off staff in response to the cost-of-living crisis as it tries to save 2 billion Swedish crowns ($196-million) a year. Net sales for September-November, H&M’s fiscal fourth quarter, rose 10 per cent to 62.5 billion Swedish crowns ($6.1-billion), up from 56.8 billion crowns a year ago. Analysts polled by Refinitiv had on average forecast 62.17 billion crowns. “This is a slightly disappointing update in the context of expectations which had drifted higher in recent weeks amid somewhat better market data from Germany and Sweden,” said J.P. Morgan analysts in a research note. “Furthermore, w...

Make the most of your first dedicated session with your CEO: Be fully prepared, scrupulously professional and concise. Getty Images/iStockphoto Gus Carlson is a U.S.-based columnist for Tausi Insider. Along with crowded gyms, empty bars and full flights to warm destinations, the new year brings the annual gripe-fest about CEO compensation. It’s a familiar chorus in the media, the same story that runs year after year: No one person can really be worth that many millions. The pay gap between the C-suite and the work force is too wide – and getting wider. The perceived lack of fairness is summed up in sensationally naive metrics about how, on the first annual working day, the average chief executive makes more money over breakfast than the average worker makes in a year. But the problem isn’t that chief executives are getting paid too much. The enormous responsibilities they assume, especially those who run public companies, go well beyond their job descriptions. When those “big moments...

Hudson's Bay Co. says the head of The Bay, its online marketplace division, is retiring this month. Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press Hudson’s Bay Co. says the head of The Bay, its online marketplace division, is retiring this month and that the current president of Hudson’s Bay, which oversees Canadian retail stores, will take on the additional role. The retailer says Sophia Hwang-Judiesch, who came on as president of Hudson’s Bay last September, will lead efforts to transform and improve both the digital and in-store performance of the retailer after Iain Nairn retires. HBC separated its 86 stores into a separate division from its website in 2021. Nairn, who is stepping down as president and CEO of The Bay, was appointed president of Hudson Bay’s before the split, in January, 2020. Richard Baker, executive chairman of HBC, thanked Nairn in a statement and said he was confident Hwang-Judiesch could help improve the retailer’s performance. HBC did not give a specific reason for N...

Almost US$125-billion worth of assets, from performance losses left the hedge fund industry in 2022, Hedge Fund Research (HFR) data showed on Friday in the latest sign of the havoc that volatility wreaked on the industry last year. Investors rethought putting their money into hedge funds, leading to a net outflow of US$55-billion in assets, making it the largest capital flight from the industry since 2016, HFR said. A sharp change from 2021, when the industry saw a positive US$15-billion of net inflows. High inflation, aggressive central bank interest rate-hikes and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine roiled world markets last year, with investors across asset classes having to navigate a level of volatility not seen in years. Investors took US$40.4-billion out of hedge funds that buy and sell stocks, which is also the strategy that posted the worst performance numbers, losing US$112.5-billion. Despite the combined strong performance of funds which trade on macro-economic indicators, instit...