The Corus/Shaw Communications/Catalyst battle – a battle over valuations, financial disclosure and also the allocation of worth away from the Corus minority – reached a predictable turning point now once the target rejected an offer for any rights offering where all shareholders would participate.
As part of its information circular, Catalyst, which holds 321,000 Class B Corus shares, said “the chance to invest” should be available to all shareholders and not just a select few. (Corus has 84.5 million shares outstanding.)
Catalyst proposed to backstop a $263 million rights offering “on the same terms” because the subscription receipt offering. With that deal, Corus sold 29.21 million receipts at $9 a share. Using a private placement, the Shaw family bought 3.56 million shares also at $9.
Corus, whose shareholders gather next week to vote on the $2.65 billion transaction, rejected that proposal, arguing it “is both unworkable and self-interested.” Corus said the proposal would “needlessly increase risk for shareholders simply by entering right into a rights offering with an opportunistic fund.”
In its rejection, Corus dismissed the Catalyst proposal as “hypothetical.”
THE SMALL AND THE BIG
Both are building their businesses, both attract different market segments and have now taken the major steps to achieve their set goals.
At one end of the scale is Montreal-based CoPower, “an online platform for clean energy investing,” which has closed its first green bond offering.
The fund achieved its target of $300,000 from the group of retail investors who participated a couple weeks after prospectus exemption rules came into effect in a number of the provinces. (Prior to this, CoPower, formed in 2013, raised funds via an offering memorandum.)
Investors, who ranged in age from 24-87, committed for 5 years and was required to undergo a two-step process – the very first, the registration tactic to determine if they were suitable, and the second, an investment decision to decide when they desired to participate. Investor contributions ranged from $5,000 to $20,000.
The fund, which is backed with a pool of green loans, offered 5 per cent and also over its term investors will get a mix of interest and principal.
Trish Nixon, a partner at Co-Power is content using the procedure that she said demonstrated the online strategy and also the investment thesis. Too the main city was raised in 3 weeks, about half time the company had expected. Not every investors received an allocation, which means they will be front of the line for Co-Power’s next offering.
At the other end from the scale is Foresters Life insurance coverage Co., which acquired Aegon Capital Management and Aegon Fund Management, two firms with $10 billion of assets under management. For Foresters, the acquisition marks its entry in to the Canadian asset management business.
But Foresters is no stranger to money management: just before acquiring Aegon, the international financial services provider, had $34 billion under management. A U.S. based unit of Foresters manages that $34 billion. (Foresters’ Canadian assets were managed by an internal investment department.)
In 2011, Foresters took its start when it acquired the privately-held First Investors Consolidated Corp. and it is asset management and life insurance operations. At that time, First Investors had US$7 billion under management, mostly in 27 mutual funds.
bcritchley@nationalpost.com
