Welcome to The Globe and Mail’s business and investing news quiz. Join us each week to test your knowledge of the stories making the headlines. Our business reporters come up with the questions, and you can show us what you know.
This week: Earnings season continued! For the three months ending on March 31, Montreal-based Air Canada lost $81-million, compared with profit of $4-million in the same quarter a year earlier. In better news, Great-West Lifeco Inc. said it earned $960-million in the first quarter, up from $595-million a year earlier. But the best earnings news likely came from Shell, which reported first-quarter profit of US$7.7-billion on Thursday. Analysts had expected first-quarter adjusted earnings of US$6.46-billion, compared with US$9.65-billion a year earlier.
Also: A corporate founder felt less than fresh, as did a pandemic-era corporate darling and some cost projections for a big sporting event.
c. Not giving Corrin much to do in his new role. Corrin alleges the new owners cut him out of meetings, drastically reduced his consulting fee and accused him of being paid a lot of money “to do nothing.”
c. US$450-million. TD Bank will set aside nearly half a billion dollars to cover potential fines and other penalties. However, it said the extent of any penalties is “unknown” right now.
d. More than $500-million. Organizers say the estimated cost has more than doubled to between $483-million and $581-million.
c. Peloton. Peloton chief executive Barry McCarthy is leaving as the company slashes staff. The exercise-bike maker saw its stock market capitalization hit almost US$50-billion in early 2021. It is now worth about US$1.2-billion.
b. It is plunging in value against the U.S. dollar. The yen has sunk to three-decade lows against the U.S. dollar. The Bank of Japan appeared to intervene this week to support its currency but the yen remains at historically weak levels, leading to concerns about whether the slide in a key currency may have destabilizing effects on global trade.
b. 12 years. Kinder Morgan Canada, the original owner of the pipeline, proposed the project in 2012. Stymied by Indigenous and environmental opposition, it sold the project to the federal government in 2018.
a. Failing to establish adequate money-laundering controls. Zhao expressed regret for not introducing tougher “know your customer” policies at Binance. The exchange has paid US$4.3-billion for failing to halt transactions that financed terrorist groups and other questionable parties.
b. Microsoft is backing the projects, which are supposed to deliver 10.5 gigawatts of generating capacity, enough to power the equivalent of 1.8 million homes. The deal demonstrates how far companies are willing to go to meet clean-energy commitments at a time when cloud computing and artificial intelligence are boosting the demand for electric power.
a. Rest periods. The Teamsters Canada union says key issues are rest periods and the ability of employees to book time off to ensure they are not working while fatigued. Both major railways – Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. – say they have offered to move away from a pay-per-mile system to an hourly pay rate that offers more predictable days off.
d. It wasn’t economically feasible. Capital Power said its work on the project had confirmed it was technologically viable, but the company concluded it did not work financially. Among other things, the decision reflects uncertainty about the extent to which governments are prepared to provide reliable revenue guarantees for this form of decarbonization.
a. It struck a deal to deploy its “full self-driving” system in China. Tesla chief executive Elon Musk appears to have won tentative approval from China for the automaker’s plan to launch its “full self-driving” feature in the country.
d. Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell. Powell reiterated the Federal Reserve’s focus on driving inflation back to 2 per cent as he announced the U.S. central bank’s decision this week to hold interest rates steady. Stock and bond investors have been disappointed at the dwindling prospects for imminent rate cuts.
Ian McGugan