Tausi Insider

To steal a phrase from supermodel Linda Evangelista, who wouldn’t wake up for photo shoots that paid less than $10,000 a day, investment bankers at global platforms such as RBC Capital Markets and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. don’t typically get out of bed to split a $1-million fee. Yet RBC RY-T and Goldman GS-N – firms built for billion-dollar financings – put their muscle and brands behind a $23-million stock sale last month for junior miner Frontier Lithium Inc FL-X. The bought deal, initially pitched as a $20-million offering then upsized because of investor demand, earned the two lead dealers and four other banks just $1.1-million. The Frontier financing highlights how the biggest banks are jockeying for position in critical minerals and the emerging supply chain for electric vehicle batteries. RBC and Goldman won lead roles last month raising money for a company that previously worked with small-cap mining specialists Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. and BMO Capital Markets, which co-l...

Construction for an LNG Canada site in Kitimat, B.C., in September 2022. LNG Canada/Reuters Shell PLC’s LNG Canada export project in British Columbia plans to start building its proposed second phase with natural gas-powered turbines and switch to electricity as more renewable power becomes available, a top executive said, a decision that means the expansion project will initially generate high greenhouse gas emissions. LNG Canada, in which Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp. owns a 15 per cent stake, is set to be Canada’s first liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal. The first phase is expected to begin shipments around 2025. With global demand for natural gas from sources other than Russia accelerating after its invasion of Ukraine last year, LNG Canada is weighing whether to build by 2030 a second phase to double annual capacity to 28 million tonnes. LNG Canada now plans to initially build Phase 2 with natural gas-powered turbines and switch to electric motors as more power becomes avai...

Britain’s competition regulator said on Wednesday it had started the first phase of an investigation into U.S. chipmaker Broadcom Inc’s AVGO-Q $61 billion acquisition of cloud-computing firm VMware Inc. VMW-N The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said in November it was investigating whether the deal between the two U.S.-listed companies could substantially hurt competition in Britain, adding that it had until March 22 to decide. The Broadcom-VMware deal was one of the biggest announcements globally in 2022, marking the chipmaker’s attempt to diversify into the enterprise software segment. Tech deals have drawn intense scrutiny from regulators around the world on concerns over too much market clout in the hands of a few firms and the possibility of bigger companies acquiring startups only to shut them down. Broadcom and VMware did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. https://www.tausiinsider.com/u-k-competition-watchdog-probes-61-billion-broadcom-vmwar...