Here are the top reads on deals and financial services over the last week. We will be back with the newsletter after Boxing Day. Have a great holiday,
CPPIB adopts new global voting policy to push for more women on corporate boards: Canada’s largest public pension fund will use its substantial voting power as a large shareholder in numerous global companies to push for more women to serve on boards of directors. The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board said it established a policy to vote against any chairman of a company’s director-nominating committee if the board has no female members. Called the Global Gender Diversity Voting Practice, CPPIB is putting it into force internationally after encouraging results in pushing companies toward more diverse boards in Canada, it said. Story (Jeffrey Jones, for subscribers)
Anbang hires CBRE to sell four Bentall Centre towers in Vancouver: sources: Anbang Insurance Group has hired a broker to sell its Vancouver office towers and plans to put the properties up for sale early next year, according to sources with knowledge of the matter. The Chinese insurance conglomerate has tapped commercial realtor CBRE to sell four of the five Bentall Centre towers that it owns, said the sources who were not authorized to speak publicly due to confidentiality reasons. Story (Rachelle Younglai, for subscribers)
Why the debt market shakeup spells trouble – for investors and for the economy: Investors are pulling their money out of securities that pool low-grade corporate debt, creating stress in one of the riskiest corners of North America’s debt markets. Since mid-November, mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that allow retail investors to bet on so-called leveraged loans have seen a total of about US$9-billion in outflows by U.S. investors. That includes a withdrawal of US$2.5-billion from leveraged-loan funds in just five days in early December, setting a new weekly record for net outflows. Story (Tim Kiladze, for subscribers)
RBC hits back at Facebook report, says it couldn’t see users' messages: Royal Bank of Canada denied allegations that the lender had access to private conversations on Facebook, forcefully arguing that it never could see or delete user messages. “We did not have the ability to see users’ messages,” RBC said in a statement Wednesday. Story (Tim Kiladze and James Bradshaw, for subscribers)
Home Capital stock sinks after Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway cuts bulk of stake: Berkshire Hathaway is offloading most of its shares in Home Capital Group Inc., 18 months after the firm run by billionaire investor Warren Buffett stepped in to help rescue the mortgage lender. News of Berkshire’s decision to pull out comes as Home Capital is still recovering from a crisis that pushed what was once Canada’s leader in alternative mortgages to the brink of insolvency last year. Story (James Bradshaw, for subscribers)
Sun Life to buy majority stake in Bentall GreenOak in bid to expand global footprint: Sun Life Financial Inc. is set to acquire a majority stake in newly formed real estate investment management firm Bentall GreenOak, expanding its investment capabilities in commercial properties beyond North America. Story (Clare O’Hara, for subscribers)
Fortress broker FFM files for insolvency: A third mortgage brokerage firm affiliated with troubled Fortress Real Developments Inc. has gone out of business, shutting down the last of the network that helped Fortress raise $920-million in syndicated mortgage financing from regular investors. Story (Janet McFarland, for subscribers) In case you missed it, read Janet McFarland’s investigation, Inside the fall of Fortress.
Robo-advisers are shaking up the Canadian investing landscape, in a good way: One dystopian vision of the future is that robots will take our jobs. Even the white-collar jobs. Apparently no one will be safe. Whatever your views on the likelihood of that grim prophecy (personally, I like the prospect of a sci-fi world with machines waiting on me hand and foot), there is no reason to fear the advent of machines lending a hand in the context of financial advisory services. Opinion (Lisa Kramer)
Raymond James fined $125,000 for overcharging fee-based clients: Raymond James Ltd. will pay $125,000 in fines after admitting to overcharging more than 6,000 clients in fee-based accounts. In a settlement agreement this week, Raymond James – an independent investment-fund dealer – agreed to pay a $125,000 fine and $5,000 in costs to the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) after the firm failed to have proper internal compliance controls in place. Story (Clare O’Hara, for subscribers)
Katanga Mining, CEO and former insiders to pay $34.4-million in OSC settlement: Katanga Mining Ltd., its chief executive officer and a number of former officers and directors admitted they broke Canadian securities laws and agreed to pay $34.4-million in penalties in a settlement agreement approved by the Ontario Securities Commission on Tuesday centred around misleading financial disclosures. Story (Niall McGee, for subscribers)
Investors call for restitution from regulator over Fortress investment: A group of investors says Ontario’s mortgage regulator bears some of the blame for losses linked to investments in Fortress Real Developments Inc. and is calling on the provincial government to pay restitution. Story (Janet McFarland, for subscribers)
Regulators leave Fortress investors exposed to mortgage industry Wild West: Jawad Rathore, chief executive officer and majority owner of troubled Fortress Real Developments, has a history of run-ins with regulators dating back to the early 2000s. Different regulators, that is. In 2005, the Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada banished him for life from the mutual fund industry. Six years later, the Ontario Securities Commission banned him from trading in securities or giving securities advice for 15 years. But Mr. Rathore never really got out of the business of selling investments. He didn’t have to. Fortress, based in Richmond Hill, Ont., would go on to sell nearly $1-billion worth of risky syndicated commercial real estate mortgages to thousands of often unsophisticated small investors between 2008 and 2017, according to a sweeping investigation of Fortress by reporter Janet McFarland in last Saturday’s Globe and Mail. Opinion (Barrie McKenna, for subscibers)
Shopify’s equity deal sparks 19.5 per cent plummet in shares: Software firm Shopify Inc. added US$440-million to its war chest last week with a stock offering that it said would improve its balance sheet and help pay for future growth plans. That decision has proved to be a headache for its shareholders and the investment banks that led the deal. Story (Andrew Willis, for subscribers)
Michelle Romanow’s Clearbanc raises another $50-million when published: Dragons' Den star Michele Romanow and her partner Andrew D’Souza have secured another US$50-million to grow their latest startup, Clearbanc, just weeks after announcing they had raised US$70-million to bankroll the financing provider for e-commerce firms. Story (Sean Silcoff)
Three recipients of Ottawa’s venture capital program hit halfway mark on funds: Three of the five fund-of-funds managers that were chosen by the federal government to stimulate Canada’s venture-capital industry have surpassed half of their fundraising targets. Story (Sean Silcoff, for subscribers)
OSC says Glencore unit made misleading statements, hid relationship with Israeli businessman: The Ontario Securities Commission alleges that Katanga Mining Ltd, and a number of its current and past officers and directors, broke Canadian securities laws by making misleading financial statements and failed to disclose a relationship with a controversial Israeli businessman who provided services to the company. The regulator is holding a hearing on Tuesday to approve a settlement agreement that is expected to lead to millions of dollars in fines for Katanga, a Toronto-listed subsidiary of Glencore PLC, a giant Anglo-Swiss metals and mining conglomerate. Story (Niall McGee, for subscribers)
Do banks’ new small-business lending platforms deliver on their promise? We applied for loans to find out: Small-business owners have long complained about the difficulty of getting bank loans. The process has often been slow and bureaucratic, and many small companies, particularly those without hard assets, say rejections for funding have been all too common. But in recent months, some banks – nudged by upstart competitors in the fintech space – have unveiled new platforms to serve small business. They claim to make it easier for these customers to access money, but do they live up to their promise? We figured the best way to gauge was to apply for loans on the platforms. Story (Sarah Efron, for subscribers)
The Streetwise newsletter is Tuesday to Saturday. If you’re reading this on the web, or if someone forwarded this e-mail to you, you can sign up for Streetwise and all Globe newsletters on our signup page.