Which company just completed the largest corporate bond offering in Canadian history? Take our business and investing news quiz.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
Welcome to The Globe and Mail’s business and investing news quiz. Join us each week to test your knowledge of the stories making headlines. Our business reporters come up with the questions, and you can show us what you know.
This week: Kevin Warsh was confirmed this week as the new chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve and how much higher were U.S. prices in April compared with a year earlier? Take our quiz and find out.
b. Google parent Alphabet raised $8.5-billion by selling a four-part bond with maturity dates ranging from five to 30 years. It was not only the largest maple bond the market has ever seen – maples being the Bay Street term for loonie-denominated bonds issued by non-Canadian companies – but also the largest corporate bond issue in the country’s history.
a. Equinox is seeking to join the ranks of North America’s largest gold producers with its all-stock offer for Orla Mining, which owns gold properties in Ontario, Nevada, Mexico and Panama. If the bid goes through, Equinox would become Canada’s second-largest gold producer, behind Agnico Eagle Mines.
b. Jesta, which manages rental properties and other commercial properties, plans to spend $500-million to buy more than 1,000 newly built Toronto condos and turn them into rentals. It is counting on a turnaround in the city’s depressed real estate market. Developers are sitting on heaps of unsold condo inventory today, but some forecasters estimate that by 2030 the market will once again be feeling a shortage.
c. The U.S. Labour Department reported this week that its consumer price index rose 3.8 per cent in April from a year earlier, boosted by higher gasoline prices as a result of the war in Iran. It was the biggest jump in prices in three years.
c. Mr. Warsh is a favourite of U.S. President Donald Trump’s but, during his confirmation hearing, he promised not to be Mr. Trump’s sock puppet when it comes to enabling the President’s desire for lower interest rates. We will soon see how far Mr. Warsh’s independence goes. The surge in inflation that is apparent in the latest data suggests that lower interest rates are the last thing the economy needs right now.
d. Mr. Schwartz gave up control of Onex through a planned shift in voting power. The shift ends the dual-class share structure that had given Mr. Schwartz unquestioned authority over the company for years. Onex will now have a single class of voting shares, with one vote per share, that will elect 80 per cent of the company’s board of directors.
c. It was the largest number of insolvency filings in a quarter since 2009, according to data from the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy. Rising costs and uncertainty around housing and employment are straining consumers’ finances.
a. "TD Securities is highly confident that funded debt of up to US$20-billion could be raised" by GameStop, Larry Wieseneck, head of corporate and investment banking at TD Securities, wrote in a May 1 letter to GameStop chief executive Ryan Cohen. Um, right. GameStop’s bid has been described as "neither credible nor attractive" by eBay, while other observers have expressed even more pungent opinions, calling the bid "delusional," among other things.
a. Mr. Farage, whose party scored huge gains in recent local elections, received the gift from the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne. The crypto industry has also been a major contributor to U.S. politicians.
b. Goldman Sachs’s Alternatives arm is buying a majority stake in QScale for an undisclosed sum. QScale’s main data centre campus is in Lévis, Que., and the company says it will now move forward with construction of a new building on the site, representing an additional investment of $700-million. It is also planning to construct an even larger data centre in Ontario.
d. The long life cycle of the subs will create a long-term partnership with the winning country spanning close to 70 years.