Stories tagged with "private equity"

The Round-Up: July 3rd 2007

Posted by Stoneleigh on July 3, 2007 - 4:40am in The Oil Drum: Canada
Topic: Miscellaneous
Tags: atlantica, biofuel, bond rating, climate change, consolidated debt obligation, credit crunch, equalization, leveraged buyout, lng, private equity, resource royalties, smart metering, subprime loans, uranium [list all tags]

Dried-up Arctic ponds evidence of global warming, study says

A University of Alberta scientist has uncovered dramatic evidence of climate change in the Arctic, where ponds that have been part of the landscape for more than 6,000 years are drying up as global warming has nearly doubled the length of the brief northern summer.

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The Round-Up: June 15th 2007

Posted by Stoneleigh on June 15, 2007 - 8:58am in The Oil Drum: Canada
Topic: Miscellaneous
Tags: atlantic accord, credit bubble, emissions, equalization, foreclosure, income trusts, kyoto, leveraged buyout, mackenzie valley pipeline, nuclear waste, oil sands, private equity, recession, taxation [list all tags]

Trust tax linked to private equity buyouts

The income trust structure was a major impediment to private equity firms buying up pieces of Corporate Canada, the Finance Department was told one day before Ottawa slapped a crippling tax on the sector.

"Private equity firms generally find it difficult to compete against the income trust alternative, said an Oct. 30, 2006, memo sent to Bob Hamilton, senior assistant deputy minister of tax policy at the Finance Department.

The memo was obtained by The Globe and Mail under access to information law.

For anyone at Finance who knew the trust tax was imminent, one conclusion that's easily drawn from the memo is that taxing trusts out of existence would likely usher in even more private equity buyouts by Canadian and foreign investors, which is what happened.

What Price Victory? (scroll down)

It’s reasonable to assume that, as professionals operating within a government department nominally charged with understanding affairs of finance, the folks working for Flaherty would have some rudimentary understanding of the way key players in the private space—private equity, for example—operate.

That is private-equity firms find undervalued, cash-generating businesses, strip them down and load them up with debt. Interest expenses basically wipe out taxes owed. That’s the nutshell.

What was that about “tax leakage”?

Either the professionals have no clue about their business, or they engineered the destruction of the trust sector. Secretive, incompetent and stupid is no way to run a government.

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The Round-Up: May 8th 2007

Posted by Stoneleigh on May 8, 2007 - 8:59am in The Oil Drum: Canada
Topic: Site news
Tags: agrichar, climate change, equalization, ethanol, feed-in tariffs, fish, gasoline, leveraged buyout, mackenzie valley pipeline, nuclear, oil sands, private equity, subprime mortgages, water [list all tags]

The nuclear option

Sensing some reluctance from the crowd, Hawthorne later slips into passive-aggressive salesman mode. "I'm not here to sell you a nuclear plant. If you don't want a nuclear plant, I don't want to be here."

But he does want to be there, and he is selling something the idea that a nuclear renaissance is upon us, that emission-free atomic power will save local economies, keep global warming in check and pave the way to a nuclear-based hydrogen economy. The message in a nutshell: the construction of new nuclear plants in Canada is inevitable.

Nuclear power, once shunned, is back on the table in Canada and around the world. Its image as a risky, expensive, dangerous technology amplified by the Three Mile Island accident and Chernobyl disaster is clouding. Only emission-free nuclear power, proponents say, can keep global warming in check without hindering economic growth.

There's serious talk in Alberta about using nuclear power to reduce emissions during oil sands production. Behind the scenes, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has reportedly embraced the cause. And Ontario has already committed to building two new nuclear reactors totalling 1,000 megawatts in the province just the start, industry and political sources contend.

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The Round-Up: April 24th 2007

Posted by Stoneleigh on April 24, 2007 - 12:40pm in The Oil Drum: Canada
Topic: Site news
Tags: biofuel, climate change, credit standards, drought, emissions, ethanol, housing market, incandescents, kyoto, leveraged buyout, oil sands, private equity, refining [list all tags]

Clean up your own backyard, Stelmach tells Gore

Gore was in Calgary speaking at a sold-out Jack Singer Concert Hall about his Academy Award-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, which argues global warming, spurred by the use of carbon-based fuels such as oil and coal, is the biggest threat facing the world.

He has targeted the oilsands, suggesting far too much natural gas is burned processing northern Alberta's bitumen.

But Stelmach, who hasn't seen the documentary, said Monday in Calgary the province is merely feeding Americans' insatiable demand for energy, so perhaps Gore should look closer to home.

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The Round-Up: April 20th 2007

Posted by Stoneleigh on April 20, 2007 - 12:41pm in The Oil Drum: Canada
Topic: Site news
Tags: bees, biofuel, bulk water exports, cascadia, climate change, credit derivatives, income trusts, integration, kyoto, oil sands, private equity, royalties, wind power [list all tags]

Income trust imbroglio

On April 9, The Globe and Mail reported that Flaherty's tax changes, which were supposed to have brought Ottawa more revenue, are having the opposite effect. Not only is revenue lost instead of gained, Canada is losing ownership of its resources in the process, and investment in the energy sector is decreasing. "It would only take slightly more than 15 per cent of the trust sector to be bought out by foreign private equity, and non-Canadian firms, before Ottawa was losing annual tax revenue equivalent to what it said eluded its grasp before the trust tax."

In other words, Ottawa could lose $5- to $6-billion annually. The article quotes Sandy McIntyre of Sentry Select Capital Corporation: "If so-called tax fairness was intended to accelerate the sale of Canadian companies to foreign entities, then it is a success. If it was intended to increase Canadian tax revenues, it is a failure."

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The Round-Up: February 27th 2006

Posted by Stoneleigh on February 27, 2007 - 1:26pm in The Oil Drum: Canada
Topic: Site news
Tags: china, climate change, fort mcmurray, gasoline, liquidity, oil sands, private equity, recession, stock market [list all tags]

Speculative bubbles and the realization of risk:

Bubbles Brewing in Shanghai, Tokyo, and London

There is a bubble growing. Investors should be concerned about the risks, said Cheng Siwei, vice-chairman of Chinas National Peoples Congress in a January 31st interview with the Financial Times. But in a bull market, people will invest relatively irrationally. Every investor thinks they can win. But many will end up losing. But that is their risk and their choice, Cheng warned.

In what might develop into the third biggest stock market bubble in history, ranked alongside Japans Nikkei-225 of 1986-89, and the Nasdaqs 1999-2000 bull run, the Shanghai Composite A share Index, restricted mainly to Chinese nationals, has posted a 140% gain over the past 12-months, after soaring 46% in the fourth-quarter of 2006 alone. And without deliberate market intervention, the A-share market could inflate into a Nasdaq-like bubble.

China Stocks Post Biggest Drop in Decade

Chinese stocks plunged nearly 9 percent Tuesday, their biggest drop in a decade, rattling markets from Hong Kong and Singapore to as far away as New York amid concerns over a possible slowdown in China's economy.
Investors were also spooked by comments Monday from former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who said a recession in the U.S. was "possible" later this year.

One day after sending Shanghai's benchmark index to a record, investors dumped stocks to lock in profits amid speculation about a fresh round of austerity measures from Beijing to slow the nation's sizzling economy. The Shanghai Composite Index tumbled 8.8 percent to close at 2,771.79, its largest decline since it fell 8.9 percent on Feb. 18, 1997, following the death of Communist Party elder Deng Xiaoping.

Stocks Have Worst Day Since 9/11 Attacks

Stocks had their worst day of trading since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks Tuesday, hurtling the Dow Jones industrials down more than 400 points on a worldwide tide of concern that the U.S. and Chinese economies are stumbling and that share prices have become overinflated.
The steepness of the market's drop, as well as its global breadth, signaled a possible correction after a long period of stable and steadily rising stock markets that had not been shaken by such a volatile day of trading in several years.

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