Canadian Business Thread

[Ruckus]

Less recent, but still relevant.

Potash potential
Investors bet millions on Athabasca's plan for Burr-area desposit
Murray Lyons, The StarPhoenix
Published: Wednesday, December 12, 2007


Dawn Zhou, president of Athabasca Potash Inc., believes a new potash mine could be a reality within five years
Greg Pender, The StarPhoenix

There is not much valuable real estate left in the unincorporated village of Burr (Pop. 3), located about halfway between Guernsey and Humboldt along Highway 20, besides the RM of Wolverine office and a community hall.

But an upstart Saskatchewan potash company has a group of institutional investors talking about the potential, multibillion-dollar value of the Burr potash deposit located 1.1 kilometres below the Prairie landscape.

These institutional investors are doing more than just talk about Athabasca Potash Inc. of Saskatoon and its Burr project. By the end of this week, Athabasca expects to have closed its over-subscribed initial public offering and raised close to $49 million from investors. As early as Thursday, shares of Athabasca could be trading on the main TSX exchange under the trading symbol API.

The Burr potash land lease was first explored by drill bits half a century ago. Most important to Athabasca Potash, it is located almost immediately north of the giant PCS Lanigan mine and its extensive potash leases and shares the same geology, according to Athabasca's founder, president and CEO Dawn Zhou.

She has been quietly working toward going public with Athabasca for more than two years. In today's bull potash market, Zhou predicts that in another five years the Burr project will become the Burr potash mine.

With world demand growing each year by an estimated two million tonnes, or the equivalent of one new greenfield mine, Zhou says there is no doubt in her mind the world will need the production of another big Saskatchewan potash mine.

"We know Saskatchewan has lots of resources and we want to increase Saskatchewan's potash market," she said Tuesday.

Zhou's diligence in discovering mining reports and core samples in Regina that were drilled in 1958 by the former Potash Corporation of America and other now-forgotten companies into a lease area then simply known as KP 308 was intentional. She says she was looking for the most prospective area so that Athabasca could focus immediately on becoming the first company in Saskatchewan to put a new "greenfield" potash mine into the ground this century.

And while that might seem like a tall order for a new start-up company, Zhou has attracted big Saskatchewan and national mining industry names to Athabasca's board, including board chair Ken MacNeill, the president of Saskatoon's Shore Gold Inc., and James Gardiner of Calgary, a former president and CEO of Fording Coal Ltd.

While many junior companies look for mineral resources and then seek a senior partner, Zhou is confident Athabasca can complete all the required pre-feasibility and feasibility studies without having to seek a senior corporate partner.

"We want to have the option. We could continue independently," said Zhou, a Chinese-trained geologist who recently marked 18 years as a resident and business consultant in Saskatoon. "As long as you have a good project, you could convince people there are investment opportunities so the financing would be there for you.

"You've got to walk before that, but it's going to be there for you. There's a lot of cash out there -- China has $1.3 trillion to invest -- and they are looking for good projects."

Zhou says the idea of creating a potash exploration and development company grew out of visits made in 2004 by Chinese venture capital companies who used Zhou and her CSIT Consulting Inc. business as a first point of contact.

In 2004, she simply named her company Athabasca Resources, assuming she might join the rush to explore for uranium in the far north. Instead, research showed there was no such thing as a junior potash exploration company in Saskatchewan despite the enormous, well-defined deposits located within mineral leases long abandoned by other companies.

The initial bit of financing to do some early stage seismic work came through money raised among family and friends she has made in the Saskatoon business community, plus an early investment of $150,000 from Tom MacNeill's 49 North Resource fund.

The five drill holes done a year ago required a further private placement of $3.5 million and Zhou says almost all of that money was raised among Saskatchewan residents interested in the resource play.

Last year, a further private placement raised $11 million and some $6 million of that has already been spent on the prospects done so far.

The $46.5 million net that will go into Athabasca's bank account once the brokers are paid will last about 18 months before additional funds need to be raised to get to a mine, Zhou says. The ultimate source of the $2 or $3 billion dollars ultimately needed to fund a potash mine is an issue that time will resolve, she said.

"We are lucky," Zhou said Tuesday. "We have the most advanced exploration project. At this point, we are not subject to any joint venture.

"We believe you need to give the market time to recognize the value of the project and we will continue adding value to the project as time goes on."

mlyons@sp.canwest.com

Source

[1ajs]

Business is sweet at Ganong

Last Updated: Friday, December 28, 2007 | 12:38 PM ET

CBC News


While it's been a rough year for many candy manufacturers in Canada, the biggest candy maker in the Maritimes is pursuing expansion plans.
Ganong Chocolates has significantly increased its output of sugar candies like jujubes and peppermints, said the company's CEO.
"We currently are operating with something in the area of 15 to 20 per cent more employees than last year," said David Ganong, a fourth-generation confectioner.
The company is in negotiations that could result in significant expansion to its business, Ganong said.
"Were we to be successful in some of the discussions that are currently taking place, that would need to ramp up even considerably further."
Ganong hopes some of those discussions will be completed within the next few months.

Ganong has watched as candy-making giants fell this year.
Hershey shut down all three of its Canadian factories in 2007, including the Moirs chocolate plant in Dartmouth, just before Christmas.

Production from that plant was moved to Mexico.
Ganong Chocolates has actually gained business out of its competitors shutting down, Ganong said.
"It's our goal to try and take advantage of what opportunities might exist as a result of the change in the nature of the industry and as I would call it, the consolidation," Ganong said.
Candy exports to the U.S. have also fallen because of the stronger Canadian dollar.

[caltrane74]

Originally Posted by yyzer

Property Report: OUTLOOK: OFFICE SPACE

Inflated values, but without the bubble

Office sector's fundamentals are so stable that it's considered an attractive investment vehicle, observers say
TERRENCE BELFORD

Special to The Globe and Mail

January 8, 2008

Ask Tom Farley, president of Brookfield Properties Corp.'s Canadian operations, what he thinks 2008 holds for the office market and his words resound with confidence: "In my 30 years' experience, I have never seen the fundamentals as strong as they are now."

It is an opinion shared with almost every mover and shaker in the industry.

"I think 2008 is going to bring us great new opportunities," says Paul Finkbeiner, president of GWL Realty Advisers Inc., with a 30-million-square-foot office portfolio.

Yes, the U.S. credit crunch has spread to Canada, but those being affected are land- lords who have overleveraged their borrowing, or buyers that have counted on mortgage financing well above a 75-per-cent debt-to-equity ratio.

"Earlier this year, we were outbid for many deals. But now those groups that bought with greater than 75 per cent financing are finding that they can't afford them," Mr. Finkbeiner says. Things turned around in the fall and "we have started getting those deals again."

Wayne Barwise, senior vice-president of office development for Cadillac Fairview Corp., says that if you need a sign of the times, just look at the office construction under way or in the planning stages. That happy combination of low vacancy rates and high demand means that landlords can now get enough in rent to justify building once more.

"The exciting part is the new projects are all 21st century technology. They are almost all LEED-certified, green buildings," he says, referring to the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program. "They may cost 5 to 7 per cent more to build, but they deliver 30 to 50 per cent savings on things like energy use."

In fact, Cadillac Fairview has about 3.5 million square feet in office developments going up across Canada with projects in both Toronto and Calgary, and GWL is sitting on a 600,000-square-foot project at 18 York St. in Toronto that is ready to go once it inks a deal with a major tenant.

"Like everyone else, we won't proceed these days until we are substantially preleased," Mr. Finkbeiner says.

Perhaps most important for landlords, brokers, agents and investors is that there is rock solid confidence in Canada's commercial real estate markets, says Paul Morse, head of Cushman Wakefield LePage's national office leasing practice.

"That is a really important factor," he says. "There is very little wheeling and dealing and no feeling of 'let's just wait until the bubble breaks.' There is no bubble. This has become a stable, professionally managed industry and, as a result, there is great confidence in it as an asset class among capital markets and investors."

I posted this in the proposal thread, should have been posted in the Canadian business thread.

from yyzr on UT/ globe and mail.

[caltrane74]

Originally Posted by current

Article from the Toronto Star


ANDREW WALLACE/TORONTO STAR

A worker removes a sign to unveil an increase in price for new condos that went up for sale at One Bloor East last month. Almost 90 people took turns camping in a sidewalk lineup outside the sales office.



Condomania hits new heights

Dec 29, 2007 04:30 AM
Gail Swainson
Real Estate Reporter

Final details of Canada's priciest condo are still being firmed up with a buyer from Hong Kong. But it's safe to say that architect Roy Varacalli is working overtime to ensure that all the unnamed businessman's wishes come true in a $25million penthouse suite at One Bloor East.

In the year of the condo – people camped out on the sidewalks to buy them, sales eclipsed those of regular houses for the first time and prices kept soaring – One Bloor garnered most of the attention.

The 7,500-square-foot suite at the building will take up the entire 80th floor and features a 360-degree bird's-eye view of the city. Renderings, which fit the mould of what some in the industry call "real estate pornography," show the so-called infinity edge indoor pool that has a glass wall overlooking Toronto's downtown on one end.

The suite also features five outdoor terraces with heated floors, three bedrooms, library, music room, two kitchens, a walk-in wine cellar, cold storage closet for furs and his-and-hers ensuite master baths. Hers has a steam shower with heated floors, fireplace, wine fridge and imported Italian soaker tub fronting a solid glass wall.

Varacalli also says a few metres will be added to the building's distinctive rooftop "wings," to ensure that it's the tallest residential building in the city at 282 metres high.

That would trump the spired Trump tower, which – despite being cut from 70 to 57 storeys this year – claims to be Toronto's tallest planned residential building at 281.88 metres. The $25 million price tag also trumps the reported $20-million tab for the penthouse at the Trump tower, a record set earlier in the year.

http://www.thestar.com/living/article/288614

About the condo boom.....

[Aylmer]

Toronto and Vancouver have no end in sight...

When do you figure it will spread to Ottawa and Montreal?

[vid]

"Varacalli also says a few metres will be added to the building's distinctive rooftop "wings," to ensure that it's the tallest residential building in the city at 282 metres high."

Yeah? Well Waverly Park Towers is going to stick a 300m pole on top of their building! Suck on it, Toronto!!! Superficial height games are ON!

[caltrane74]

Wings or No Wings..

This building is tall....

[vanman]

Final details of Canada's priciest condo are still being firmed up with a buyer from Hong Kong. But it's safe to say that architect Roy Varacalli is working overtime to ensure that all the unnamed businessman's wishes come true in a $25million penthouse suite at One Bloor East.

That building will be insane when complete. However, it won't have the claim to fame of having the country's most expensive condo:

Ritz-Carlton penthouse carries $28-million price tag
Yet-to-be built downtown condo smashes lofty price barrier

Bruce Constantineau
The Vancouver Sun

Tuesday, January 08, 2008


VANCOUVER - Downtown Vancouver's luxury condo market has shattered the $20-million price barrier, with a yet-to-be-built penthouse at 1133 West Georgia carrying a price tag of more than $28 million.

That's at least $10 million more than the record $18 million paid by an unnamed U.S. businessman last year for a 48th-floor penthouse in the Private Residences at Hotel Georgia, set for completion by 2011.

The $28-million-plus condo will occupy about 7,400 square feet on the 59th and 60th floors of the Residences at Ritz-Carlton development, also set for occupancy in 2011.

Vancouver condo marketer Bob Rennie said the Ritz-Carlton project was going to have three penthouse suites, but demand for a larger unit prompted developers to combine two suites into one large penthouse.

"We have some serious interest in a large unit, so we decided to put the northwest and northeast penthouses together," he said in an interview. "With people wanting size, it's just a good business decision to put the two together."

Rennie said potential buyers of the luxury condo include "corporate giants," with two local clients and one overseas client already expressing a strong interest.

He said the penthouse's current configuration calls for three bedrooms, two dens, a family room, formal dining room, a "massive" kitchen and butler's pantry.

"But no matter what we pencil in with the architects, whoever buys this is going to add their signature to it," Rennie said.

The asking price for the Ritz-Carlton condo works out to a whopping $3,800 a square foot, compared with $2,400 a square foot for the $18-million Hotel Georgia penthouse.

Rennie said that beyond $2,000 a square foot, prices almost don't matter to some buyers.

"At what point does a Rolls- Royce buyer say he'll only pay $500,000, not $600,000?" he said. "He doesn't. He just pays for what he wants because you're dealing with a very privileged buyer.

"So when you're talking over $20 million, a million dollars is not going to make or break the sale. It's a discretionary purchase. Nobody has to buy a $20-million condo but if they're looking, there are very few to choose from."

Construction of the $500-million Ritz-Carlton project - on Georgia Street between Thurlow and Bute - is slated to begin in March, with completion expected by the summer of 2011.

The site had been a vacant and derelict concrete shell for more than a decade, following failed attempts to develop a private members' club and a strata-title office building. Vancouver-based Holborn Group bought the property from Cadillac Fairview about three years ago.

The development will contain a 127-room Ritz-Carlton hotel and 123 luxury condos. The entire building will be managed by Ritz-Carlton and condo owners will have access to hotel amenities like 24-hour room service, a concierge, housekeeping services and staffing for special entertainment events.

[caltrane74]

But the condo in Toronto has been sold..

I think that's the difference.

That article seems to suggest the Ritz Carlton Vancouver project has not yet started construction.....

what's going on there??? I thought it was under construction.

[vanman]

But the condo in Toronto has been sold..

Didn't realize that.

That article seems to suggest the Ritz Carlton Vancouver project has not yet started construction.....

what's going on there??? I thought it was under construction.

It is under construction, or destruction , whatever you want to call it. They had to demolish the existing concrete building (I think it was 10 floors tall) and now are currently at grade. The much harder task of demolition of the old building's foundation is still yet to be completed.

[vid]

Originally Posted by caltrane74

Wings or No Wings..

This building is tall....

What is the really cool looking one called?

[caltrane74]

That building is just 3D on UT having some fun.

[WaterlooInvestor]

Markets open in a few minutes. Let's hope we don't have another triple digit loss today.

[1ajs]

water the markets were at record highs its just corecting its self...

[vid]

Originally Posted by WaterlooInvestor

Markets open in a few minutes. Let's hope we don't have another triple digit loss today.

Don't worry, nothing will happen to your beloved.

[WaterlooInvestor]

TSX loses $100 billion in a week
January 19, 2008
The Canadian Press
TORONTO

Canada's main stock market came under selling pressure for the fourth straight day yesterday, ending a week that erased billions of dollars of share values and which most traders would probably like to forget.

The widespread sell-off produced a five-day loss of nearly seven per cent on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

That wiped out more than $100 billion in the share value of investments held by ordinary Canadians in stocks and mutual funds.

At the end of December, the value of all the shares traded on the TSX senior market were worth more than $1.9 trillion. Since the beginning of the year, that market has dropped 8.3 per cent, a loss of nearly $160 billion in share values.

While that number is huge, it should be noted that Canadian markets generated fat returns between 2002 and late 2007 as investors cashed in on booming prices for energy, mining and financial services stocks, considered the staples of Canada's markets.

After the latest carnage, investors are now looking for any signs of recovery as they worry about growing recessionary fears in the United States and its battered credit and housing markets.

But there wasn't much hope in sight yesterday, despite an announcement from U.S. President George W. Bush that the government there would provide about $145 billion US worth of tax relief for consumers in an effort to get them spending again.

"Investors have slowly moved away from fearing a slowdown to pricing a harder landing in the U.S,'' said Vincent Delisle, portfolio manager at Scotiabank in Montreal.

"What's different this week is that up until now the TSX index had behaved somewhat better'' than the U.S. markets.

The Toronto Stock Exchange's key index ended the week with the deepest losses of all the major North American markets and among its biggest weekly declines in seven years.

Since Monday, the TSX has shed an astounding 895 points or 6.6 per cent of its value.

Yesterday, Toronto's S&P/TSX composite index contributed 58.51 points to the week's loss, closing at 12,737.12.

"Investors around the world are getting increasingly nervous about a U.S. recession and what it would mean to commodities markets and the rest of the world,'' Delisle said.

The defensive outlook was also evident on Wall Street where the Dow Jones industrials ended the week with a tallied loss of 507 points, or four per cent.

The market turbulence seems a long way from the happier days not long ago when Toronto's main index soared to a record of 14,626 on Oct. 30.

At the end of 2007, companies on the TSX were worth a combined $1.9 trillion while the TSX Venture Exchange-listed firms were valued at $62 billion.

"The market last year was really hanging on a very few situations that were still doing very, very well,'' said Delisle.

More than half of the TSX's returns in 2007 came from three top companies.

Research In Motion Ltd. of Waterloo, the maker of the hot-selling BlackBerry portable device, led the bunch with a 127 per cent increase.

The other major climbers were Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc., up 158 per cent; and Alcan Inc. up 72 per cent.

Strength began to veer toward caution in the final weeks of the year as the U.S. credit crisis, revealed in August, quickly began to spread into global markets.

[WaterlooInvestor]

After last week's disaster, we're starting this week off much the same way:

TSX plunges more than 500 points at the open
Breaking News from The Globe and Mail
VIRGINIA GALT
Monday, January 21, 2008

The Toronto Stock Exchange plunged more than 500 points in early trading Monday, following steep declines in the European and Asian stock markets amid investor pessimism over the U.S. government's stimulus plan to prevent a recession.

The U.S. markets were closed for Martin Luther King day.

At 9:45 a.m. EST, the TSX was down 488.47 points to 12,12,48.65, a decline of almost 4 per cent. This comes on top of last week's 6.6-per-cent drop, which wiped out all of the market's gains for 2007.

U.K. benchmark FTSE-100 dropped 3.9 per cent to 5,673.1; France's CAC-40 Index plunged 4.5 per cent to 4,861.2, while Germany's slumped 5.35 per cent to 6,922.7.

In Asia, India's benchmark stock index tumbled 7.4 per cent, while Hong Kong's blue-chip Hang Seng index plummeted 5.5 per cent to 23,818.86, its biggest percentage drop since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Investors dumped shares because they were skeptical that an economic stimulus plan President George W. Bush announced Friday would shore up the economy that has been battered by problems in its housing and credit markets. The plan, which requires approval by Congress, calls for about $145-billion (U.S.) worth of tax relief to encourage consumer spending.

“We've taken our lead from the Asian markets who have not been impressed by the U.S. There's debate if there's going to be a recession in the U.S. I don't think there's much chance of that though,” said Richard Hunter an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown Stockbrokers Ltd. in London.

Concerns about the outlook for the U.S. economy, a major export market for Asian companies, has sent the region's markets sliding in 2008. Just last Wednesday, the Hang Seng index sank 5.4 per cent.

“It's another horrible day,” said Francis Lun, a general manager at Fulbright Securities in Hong Kong. “Today it's because of disappointment that the U.S. stimulus (package) is too little, too late and investors feel it won't help the economy recover.”

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index slid 3.9 per cent to close at 13,325.94 points, its lowest close in more than 2 years. China's Shanghai Composite index plunged 5.1 per cent, partly on worries about mainland Chinese banks' exposure to risky U.S. mortgage investments.

“People are certainly nervous about a potential recession in the U.S. spilling over to the rest of the world,” said David Cohen, Director of Asian Economic Forecasting at Action Economics in Singapore.

“Maybe there's still some wariness about politicians are able to come up with a compromise and act sufficiently quickly” on a stimulus package, Mr. Cohen said. “I think the impact would be marginal anyway.”

Investors took cues from the negative reaction to the president's plan on Wall Street on Friday, when the Dow Jones industrial average slid 0.5 per cent to 12,099.30, bringing its loss for the year so far to nearly 9 per cent.

Traders also have shrugged off assurances from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that the U.S. central bank is ready to act aggressively — which means a likely big interest rate cut later this month — to help the sagging economy.

Some analysts predict that Asia won't suffer dramatically from a U.S. recession because increased trade and investment within Asia has made the region less reliant on the United States than in the past. Excluding Japan, 43 per cent of Asia's exports go to other nations in the region, Lehman Brothers calculates, up from 37 per cent in 1995.

But on Monday, uncertainty and pessimism reigned.

In Tokyo trading, exporters got hit hard, partly because of the yen's recent strength against the dollar. Toyota Motor Corp. lost 3.3 per cent and Honda Motor Co. sank 3.4 per cent.

Shares of Bank of China dropped 6.4 per cent in Hong Kong after the South China Morning Post newspaper reported that the bank is expected to announce a “significant writedown” in U.S. subprime mortgage securities, citing unidentified sources. In Shanghai, the bank's stock declined 4.1 per cent.

India's the benchmark Sensex index fell 1,353 points, or 7.4 per cent — its second-biggest percentage drop ever — to 17,605.35 points. At one point, it was down nearly 11 per cent.

The decline hit companies across the board, with power utility Reliance Energy Ltd. falling 16.4 per cent. Major software company Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. slid 7.6 per cent “A gloomy U.S. climate has affected the global markets. Even if those markets recover, it will take some time for the recovery to reach India because today's fall has been so drastic,” said Jayant Pai, of the Mumbai investment company IL&FS Ltd.

Still, Ms. Pai and others suggested that the declines could lead to a buying opportunity.

“The sell-off today takes us close to the bottom,” she said.

Since the start of the year, Japan's Nikkei index has declined 13 per cent, while Hong Kong's blue-chip index is down more than 14 per cent. Even China's Shanghai index — which nearly doubled last year — has fallen 6.6 per cent over the same period and nearly 20 per cent from its all-time closing high on Oct. 16.

[caltrane74]

hammer time!!!!

[LordMandeep]

there goes my dads mutual funds...

or not...

[vid]

Ah, large market loses. Makes me glad I'm too poor to participate.