LATEST ANALYSIS
September 2011
29 Sep 2011
A recent SEC release will give shareholders direct access to company proxies for inclusion of their director nominees. As a result, there are new considerations for companies that are actual or likely targets of a proxy access proposal…
29 Sep 2011
Companies producing electric power from fossil fuels, especially from coal, are currently facing an unprecedented suite of new regulations by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency…
29 Sep 2011
Around the world, nations are pumping money into infrastructure. For many Canadian businesses, it’s proving an investment opportunity too good to pass up…
29 Sep 2011
UBS’s $2.3 billion loss from a single “rogue” trader has catapulted the threat of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) back into the spotlight, only weeks after regulators raised fears over these complicated financial instruments…
29 Sep 2011
A $750 million notes offering should keep Houston-based Newfield Exploration well-oiled…
29 Sep 2011
Bemis Co., a packing giant in the Dairy State, will unwrap a $400 million senior notes offering.…
29 Sep 2011
A rose by another other name would smell so sweet but what about Magnolias? Would a Collaterialised Debt Obligation (CDO) be a delight to the senses when repackaged as a CDO2 in Magnolia Funding? Credit Suisse thinks so…
29 Sep 2011
With its offering of 8 million shares, at a projected $63.99, OneOK could pump nearly $512 million into its coffers….
29 Sep 2011
Mid-tier miner IAMGOLD has completed the sale of its Mupane Gold Mine in Botswana to Galane Gold, formerly known as Carlaw Capital III Corp., for $34.2 million. The transaction was structured as a three-cornered amalgamation…
29 Sep 2011
Internet companies with a presence in the PRC should brace themselves for more rules and regulation. The industry’s main watchdog, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology…
29 Sep 2011
Another Chinese company was recently deemed too worthless to remain on the Nasdaq…
27 Sep 2011
The words “off-balance sheet arrangement” raises the specter of Enron and its special purpose entities. Yet, there can be valid reasons for maintaining such arrangements …
27 Sep 2011
The first international corporate governance conference, jointly organized by the Corporate Secretaries International Association and the Shanghai Stock Exchange, is…
27 Sep 2011
Keeping up with the competition requires capital, as evidenced by Nasdaq’s new $1.2 billion senior unsecured five-year credit facility attests…
27 Sep 2011
As China’s growing appetite for natural resources elicits apprehension from developed western nations, Africa’s market shows welcomed opportunities…
27 Sep 2011
A lack of both assets and internationally discriminatory rules are causing anger over global bank standards that U.S. and Australian banks claim will make them uncompetitive. Potentially anti-American and certainly aggressive, the Basel rules are…
27 Sep 2011
Innkeepers, Chrysler and NewPage have two things in common: bankruptcy and links to Cerberus Capital Management.
27 Sep 2011
Pleuristem Therapeutics, one of an increasing line of Israeli-American hybrid companies, has filed a shelf registration for up to $150 million in securities…
27 Sep 2011
By acquiring Goodrich Corp., United Technologies has given a boost to a defense tech industry wary of spending contractions among governments worldwide…
27 Sep 2011
Getting fruity in the UK recently was NYSE listed Scientific Games Corporation who completed its acquisition of UK based Barcrest, a gaming and fruit machine maker, for £32 million after the Office of Fair Trading concluded…
27 Sep 2011
Ottawa-based tech firm Zarlink Semiconductor has bowed to the efforts of Microsemi Corporation, agreeing to be acquired in a deal which values Zarlink at approximately $632 million…
26 Sep 2011
Top heavyweights from the $1.3 trillion exchange-traded fund (ETF) industry are bracing themselves for a shift in how their fast-growing but relatively opaque…
22 Sep 2011
The vast majority of companies fear regulatory change and are exposed to significant security gaps that leave sensitive board-level information open to information theft and hacking…
22 Sep 2011
Lack of understanding over UCIS regulation claimed another victim recently when the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) fined Rockingham Independent Limited and banned two directors and an adviser from selling complicated financial investments…
22 Sep 2011
Notwithstanding the lurid details of News Corp’s phone-hacking scandal, the company’s management now faces a redoubled frontal assault from disgruntled shareholders…
22 Sep 2011
Viacom has amended its bylaws to make Delaware’s chancery court the official forum for shareholder litigation…
22 Sep 2011
Recent doubts about the veracity of disclosures by certain China-focused issuers have led to North American investors wondering whether directors, auditors and regulators are up to the task of conducting diligence in China…
22 Sep 2011
From its Sunnyvale, California headquarters, things are looking bright for Mellanox Technologies as it hopes to cash in on an offering of three million shares…
22 Sep 2011
The credit crisis must seem a distant memory in Silicon Valley, as Intel looks to tap the debt market for $5 billion in senior notes…
22 Sep 2011
Avigilon Corporation of Vancouver, which designs and manufacturers high definition, network-based video surveillance systems and equipment for the global security market, is looking to tap the Canadian capital markets…
21 Sep 2011
In its first such action involving exchange-traded funds, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged a former Goldman Sachs employee with trading on confidential information about...
20 Sep 2011
The secret M&A discussions of William Hill, Sanlam, Nova Capital and Travelzest have been exposed as new UK takeover rules force companies into revealing their hitherto secret deals…
20 Sep 2011
Major Drilling Group of Moncton, New Brunswick seems intent on being a consolidator in the contract drilling business. The company just announced its fourth acquisition in the past eighteen months…
20 Sep 2011
As a turbulent IPO market continues to flail, The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s great private equity houses, is going public…
20 Sep 2011
Israel’s Fundtech Ltd. announced that it has terminated its merger agreement with S-1 Corp. and accepted a superior offer from private equity house GTCR…
20 Sep 2011
For now, Twitter execs need not tweet the details of their compensation to the world, says the SEC…
20 Sep 2011
The SEC is questioning Staples Inc.’s disclosures in what might, in these tax-hungry times, augur a widening trend…
20 Sep 2011
Brazilian telecom behemoth, TIM Participações will ring up $1billion in a new American Depository Shares (ADS) offering…
20 Sep 2011
Shunned by wary U.S. investors, some Chinese companies remain attractive in the eyes of Asia-focused institutional investors and venture capital funds…
20 Sep 2011
For today’s prospective M&A players, the question of shares versus assets may be tougher than ever, with increasingly complicated corporate structures…
20 Sep 2011
Auto retailer CarMax has rolled out a new batch of asset-backed securities (ABS) worth $650 million…
20 Sep 2011
India’s modern competition law, heralded by the Competition Act 2002, is probably one of the most debated laws in India in recent years…
20 Sep 2011
Chinese telecom companies have grown increasingly willing to tackle overseas competitors over patent issues and are using legal tactics to get a leg up on foreign competitors in the PRC market...
19 Sep 2011
The SEC has adopted new rules that impact both "large traders," and the broker-dealers that they trade through, as a way to investigate market disruption…
16 Sep 2011
Chinese companies listed in the U.S. should be wary of cutting corners when facing regulatory enforcement proceedings, according to several Hong Kong-based…
15 Sep 2011
In a game changing victory for the entertainment industry, a decision from the English High Court means that the film and music industries can force ISPs to block user access to copyright infringing websites and services in the UK…
15 Sep 2011
Documents released by Santander reveal that persistent Eurozone problems may have already started to infect the financial system, as the Eurozone contagion grips Europe and European deals …
15 Sep 2011
Medical tech company Stryker Corp. will roll up $750 million from a senior unsecured notes offering…
15 Sep 2011
If the death sentence of the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) was to earn a last request then it may well have been to introduce a new era of aggressive enforcement and that is exactly what…
15 Sep 2011
Canada’s Office of the Supervisor of Financial Institutions has issued an advisory on non-viability contingent capital, outlining its expectations regarding the issuance of non-common capital instruments by banks…
15 Sep 2011
Consolidation continues in the energy services sector, with the latest example being the deal by Flint Energy Services to purchase privately held Carson Energy Services of Saskatchewan for $136 million in cash and…
15 Sep 2011
Executives from Apple to Yahoo may (often gladly) suffer the limelight, but Dodd Frank puts their comings and goings under a newly intense glare…
15 Sep 2011
Hewlett Packard’s bid for the UK’s Autonomy Corp. shows that bulldog tenacity is not the exclusive province of the Scepter’d Isle. HP has not only extended the timing of its bid but is raising an impressive war chest to fund the acquisition…
15 Sep 2011
U.S. regulators have recently delisted another Chinese company for failure to timely file its periodic reports and financial statements…
13 Sep 2011
A cautionary text message has just gone out to M&A lawyers: costly antitrust pressure is up, and not only by the Department of Justice…
13 Sep 2011
Vancouver-based Inca Pacific Resources, which has been ensconced in a dispute with the Government of Peru regarding ownership of its Magistral copper/molybdenum exploration project, has agreed to be acquired…
13 Sep 2011
Beleaguered insurance giant American International Group is dipping a toe back in the debt market pool with an offer of $2 billion in notes…
13 Sep 2011
Sino Clean Energy, a NASDAQ-listed coal-water slurry fuel producer has been manufacturing more shareholder angst than product in recent months…
13 Sep 2011
Despite all of the effort being expended by public issuers and regulators on improving disclosure and transparency, the element of surprise remains a real factor when it comes to investing in a business. In the world of M&A, that risk enhances the significance…
13 Sep 2011
The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission is putting the clamp on white collar criminals. Seeking to deprive convicted offenders of their freedom…
13 Sep 2011
The SEC’s now chewing hard on filings like that of Dunkin’ Brands, perhaps given its under-caffeinated role in recent years’ controversies…
13 Sep 2011
French energy services company Technip SA will acquire Louisiana-based Global Industries Ltd. in a transaction valued at more than $1 billion…
13 Sep 2011
Countering a shareholder lawsuit, holding company MacAndrews & Forbes has raised its bid for the outstanding shares in M&F Worldwide…
12 Sep 2011
Britain’s love affair with banking is undergoing a trial separation as the Independent Commission on Banking (ICB) recommends everything short of breaking up the UK’s banks to improve banking stability…
8 Sep 2011
Almost three years on from the fall of Lehman Brothers and the widespread public bail-out of financial services the world is looking grim…
8 Sep 2011
The China Securities Regulatory Commission has raised the requirements for Chinese companies seeking to list in mainland China by way of…
7 Sep 2011
Connecticut’s Praxair will pump $500 million into the Nutmeg State’s ozone via a notes offering…
7 Sep 2011
International Paper’s on a roll. Not only will IP acquire Temple-Inland in a transaction valued at $4.3 billion, but the company has also rolled over a $1.5 billion credit facility…
7 Sep 2011
Offshore driller Cameron International has dug deep to pry LeTourneau Technologies from Joy Global for $375 million…
7 Sep 2011
The UK’s hyper-aggressive Financial Services Authority (FSA) clashed with the English courts recently, as the Upper Tribunal found that the FSA’s punishment of one London based metal trader had been excessive…
7 Sep 2011
New legislative guidelines from China’s regulator of cross-border M&A activity is causing a ruckus among foreign investors eyeing opportunities in China. The guidelines…
7 Sep 2011
The Canadian Securities Administrators has published for comment proposed National Instrument 51-103 – Ongoing Governance and Disclosure Requirements for Venture Issuers, which introduces a new regulatory regime for venture issuers…
7 Sep 2011
Pity Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, poor victims done in by their innocence of the nuances of the American housing market…
7 Sep 2011
Offshore driller Cameron International has dug deep to pry LeTourneau Technologies from Joy Global for $375 million…
7 Sep 2011
Regulatory forbearance is not a concept that has hit many headlines. It is, however, emerging as an underlying theme in publications by a range of bodies, from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to the European Union and beyond…
7 Sep 2011
The Supreme Court of England and Wales has overturned a controversial Court of Appeal decision that had thrown international arbitration into turmoil. Concluding that arbitrators are not subject to anti-discrimination legislation…
7 Sep 2011
Edmonton’s Afexa Life Sciences, maker of over‐the‐counter cold and flu remedy COLD‐FX, has found its white knight to thwart the unwanted advances of Paladin Labs of Montreal – multinational Valeant Pharmaceuticals…
7 Sep 2011
Earlier this month, Hong Kong-based CDC Software Corporation and its subsidiary Ross Systems agreed to pay Alabama-headquartered Sunshine Mills more than US$9.0 million to settle a contract…
6 Sep 2011
The week of August 22nd was literally a ‘natural disaster’ for the U.S. east coast. First, there was the 5.8 magnitude earthquake on Tuesday, halting business in D.C. for a day…
1 Sep 2011
Natural gas distribution and crude oil transportation company Enbridge is moving into the power transmission business with a deal to acquire Tonbridge Power, owner of the Montana Alberta Tie line…
1 Sep 2011
The clamor for the public disclosure of succession plans has just been hushed by the orderly (non-disclosed) succession plans currently unfolding at Apple…
1 Sep 2011
The UK’s FSA polished off its zero tolerance policies recently with its first fine for the breach of disclosure and transparency rules as it punishes Sir Ken Morrison to the tune of £210,000…
1 Sep 2011
Rising costs, shrinking domestic markets and weakened economies have created an array of M&A opportunities for global beverage businesses that have cash to throw at their troubles…
1 Sep 2011
For public issuers and their counsel, one topic which will occasionally trigger heated debate is the materiality of certain information in a disclosure context…