Reuters News

Cation Capital, a private investment firm led by the former deputy head of global oil and gas at Macquarie Group, said this week it intends to nominate four candidates to Crescent Point Energy Corp’s board at a shareholders meeting next month, Reuters reported. Cation said it was “compelled to take this action given the significant destruction of shareholder value and the abject failure of the Canadian oil producer’s current leadership across all aspects.” Calgary's Crescent Point, in return, said Cation’s last-minute demand was unreasonable and reckless, adding that the firm “appears to have been created for the sole purpose of creating conflict and havoc.”

Three large pension fund managers said this week they had invested 1 billion euros (US$1.22 billion) in Madrid-based Globalvía Inversiones SA, a transportation infrastructure developer, Reuters reported. Globalvia is 40.8 percent owned by the Netherlands’ PGGM, 40.3 percent owned by Canada’s OPTrust, and 18.9 percent owned by Britain’s USS. Toronto-based OPTrust, which has more than $20 billion in assets under management, and PGGM first invested in Globalvia in 2011 as part of a recapitalization deal.

Canada’s Nemaska Lithium Inc is in talks with U.S. private equity firm Orion Mine Finance Group on a lithium streaming deal, sources told Reuters. Nemaska Lithium, which is developing a lithium mine and processing plant in Québec to meet growing demand for the material used in rechargeable batteries, said last week it was negotiating a US$150 million streaming deal. Orion may also provide debt financing. Separately, the company said this week Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp will buy a stake of up to 9.9 percent and invest up to $99.1 million via a private placement.

Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp will buy up to 9.9 percent stake in Canada-based Nemaska Lithium Inc and invest up to $99.1 million through a private placement as part of the agreement, Reuters reported. The investment, which SoftBank said was its first in the lithium industry, will be used to fund the construction and commissioning of Nemaska’s Whabouchi Mine in Québec and its Shawinigan plant. The investment comes at a time when lithium batteries are increasingly being installed in electric cars, including Tesla Inc's top-of-the-line Model X and General Motors Co's modestly-priced Chevy Bolt.

Mergers and acquisitions among Canadian companies are expected to pick up pace after a sluggish first quarter, driven by non-resource deals and a rebound in outbound transactions as pension funds and private equity firms put massive pools of capital to work, M&A advisers told Reuters. Canadian M&A activity in the first quarter of the year dropped to US$54.2 billion, down 37 percent compared with a year ago, data from Thomson Reuters showed this week, weighed down by lower energy deals which were the biggest driver of 2017 activity.

U.S. graphite electrode maker GrafTech International Ltd said this week it could raise up to US$907 million ($1.16 billion) in what could be the largest initial public offering in the steel sector in a decade, Reuters reported. The offering of 37.8 million shares is expected to be priced between US$21 and US$24 per unit. The shares are being offered by GrafTech’s sole shareholder — Brookfield Business Partners LP, the listed vehicle of Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management's private equity group. The group acquired Independence, Ohio-based GrafTech in 2015.

Shares of Callidus Capital Corp, the Toronto specialty lending company owned by Canadian private equity firm Catalyst Capital Group, plunged to an all-time low this week after it reported a fourth-quarter and annual loss, Reuters reported. This resulted in a sharp drop in share values. The decline comes after more than a year of Catalyst’s attempts to sell Callidus to a private buyer, saying last year it was targeting a price of $18 to $22 a share. Catalyst and Callidus head Newton Glassman said that the effort to take the company private continues, with “numerous parties” still part of the process.

Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Canada’s third-biggest public pension plan, more than doubled its 2017 net return from investments compared with the year before, boosted by strong returns in private equity and infrastructure, Reuters reported. Strong performances from those asset classes helped the fund increase the value of its net assets to $189.5 billion at the end of 2017. Ontario Teachers' also said Chief Investment Officer Bjarne Graven Larsen, who joined the fund in January 2016 and has steered its investment strategy since then, had resigned and planned to return to Denmark.