Canadian bank headquarters stand on Bay Street in Toronto on Monday August 29, 2011. Bay Street is the centre of Toronto's Financial District and is often used by metonymy to refer to Canada's financial industry Photographer: Brent Lewin/BloombergBrent Lewin/The Globe and Mail
Three years ago, the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan acquired U.S. veterinary hospital chain PetVet Care Centers LLC and announced plans to back the 30-outlet business as the company expanded in a fragmented industry. Mission accomplished: PetVet now runs 125 hospitals staffed by 600 vets in 22 states, and on Wednesday, the Teachers' fund announced it is selling the company to New York-based private equity fund KKR & Co. Story (Andrew Willis, for subscribers)
Aurora Cannabis Inc. can't fast-track its hostile bid to buy CanniMed Therapeutics Inc., two securities regulators have ruled. Story (Christina Pellegrini, for subscribers)
DEAL WRAP
Toronto's Brookfield Asset Management Inc. and Onex Corp. are mulling a cash bid for Swiss-headquartered flexible workspace operator IWG PLC, which has about 3,000 locations in more than 100 countries. IWG has a market capitalization of £2.3-billion, or $3.9-billion. Story (Jacqueline Nelson, for subscribers)
Canada's two largest fertilizer companies say they have received the final regulatory permission required to complete a merger of equals that was originally announced more than 18 months ago. Story (for subscribers)
China's Geely Holding , owner of the Volvo car brand, is buying an 8.2 per cent stake in Swedish truck maker AB Volvo from activist investor Cevian Capital, worth around $3.3-billion (U.S.) at current market prices. Story
Switzerland-based Sirin Labs announced today that its initial coin offering has raised $157.8 million (U.S.), the fourth-largest such offering in a year that has been defined by an explosion in blockchain-driven crowdfunding. Story (VentureBeat)
WHAT WE'RE READING
Not all great reporting requires hushed conversations in back allies or on burner phones. Sometimes – like what columnist Angelo Calvello did with "A Crime Foretold" – all it takes is an old magazine, Google, and a relentless curiosity about the inner workings of institutional finance. Read Institutional Investor's top column of 2017 and the rest of the year's best. Column (Institutional Investor)
2018 looks to be a good year for U.S. fintech companies, as banks plan to step up their investments. Story (American Banker)
SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son created the $100-billion (U.S.) Vision Fund by tapping Middle Eastern petrodollars from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. But the Saudis aren't the only ones with cash and a burning need to diversify their investments to make up for falling oil prices. Story (The Information)
FINANCIAL SERVICES WRAP
JPMorgan Chase & Co. will pay $2.8-million (U.S.) to settle charges that a broker-dealer unit lacked sufficient controls to safeguard customer securities from several countries over more than eight years, a U.S. regulator said on Wednesday. Story
Barclays expects to take a writedown of about £1-billion ($1.3-billion U.S.) on its annual post-tax profit as a result of the U.S. tax overhaul, the bank said in a statement on Wednesday. Story
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: EASY MONEY INVESTIGATIVE SERIES
The provincial governments that oversee the vast majority of Canada's capital markets say the revelations from a recent Globe and Mail investigation into white-collar crime across the country are a serious concern – and that steps must be taken to fix those problems. Story (Grant Robertson and Justin Giovannetti, for subscribers)
Read the investigation from the beginning:
The use of an alias has opened the door for white-collar criminals to commit repeat offences before being caught, a year-long Globe investigation reveals. Story (Grant Robertson and Tom Cardoso, for subscribers)
Methodology: How The Globe and Mail detected repeat offenders in 30-years-worth of Canadian securities markets Story (Grant Robertson and Tom Cardoso, for subscribers)
Easy money: How fraudsters can make millions off Canadian investors, get barely punished and do it again. A Globe data investigation of 30 years' worth of regulatory cases reveals a toothless system. Story (Grant Robertson and Tom Cardoso, for subscribers)
Barrie McKenna: Anyone who believes crime doesn't pay probably hasn't looked at Canada's woeful record of punishing people who peddle investments in fake companies and other financial frauds. Life is far too comfortable for white-collar criminals in this country. Just give regulators the tools to fix the problem, Barrie McKenna writes Column
$1,101,583,984.44. That's the amount of unpaid securities fines in Canada, a Globe investigation has determined. The massive figure shows how these sanctions are ignored by white-collar criminals – and how powerless regulators are to collect. Story (Grant Robertson and Tom Cardoso, for subscribers)
Investor advocacy groups say the Canadian Securities Administrators is making misleading statements and being "willfully blind" to problems in the capital markets after the organization responded this week to an investigation by The Globe and Mail. Story (Grant Robertson and Tom Cardoso, for subscribers)