Description: How would you like to live in a bothy for a while during your university term? A bothy is a Scottish word for a small cabin, and the government is funding a series of these bothys in rural Scotland as a form of artist retreat. One designer, Gareth Neal, will soon install a bothy in… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Financial Reporting and Analysis
Selling off Hydro One
Description: Premier Kathleen Wynne has now joined the list of three previous Ontario premiers who have proposed selling of Hydro One, the provincially owned electric utility. With a probable value in excess of $15 billion, Hydro One may be an attractive target for privatization. The Premier sees the funds generated from sale of this Crown… Read more »
Pension woes
Description: Interest rates continue to fall, signalling bad times for pension funds and pension recipients. As rates fall, the present value of the liabilities in defined benefit pension plans increase. An increase in liablities, often means that a company must contribute more cash to the pension plan. Source: Globe and Mail.com Date: February 20, 2015… Read more »
Google cost control
Description: Googles latest results have fallen short of analyst projections. Both revenue and profit were below expectations. One issue noted was that Google’s operating expenses had increased by 35% from the previous year, perhaps due to some projects outside the core business, such as the so-called driverless car project. Source: Globe and Mail.com Date: January 29, 2015… Read more »
Modernizing shareholder governance
Description: Last Thursday Canadian Securities Administrators labelled the shareholders’ voting system in Canada “antiquated and fragmented”. This “antiquated and fragmented” approach has lead to miscounts in votes by shareholders at corporate meetings, generating complaints that more votes are cast than the number of outstanding shares in the company. Handling of proxy votes appears to be… Read more »
Protecting public assets
Description: On January 22, New Brunswick’s Auditor General, Kim MacPherson, released her report for 2014. Two issues which grabbed a lot of attention were the Province’s increasing public debt and NB Power’s refurbishment of the Point Lepreau nuclear generating station. Another important issue raised was the deteriorating state of the Province’s public assets, and the… Read more »
Target leaving town
Description: Many were caught by surprise last week when retail giant Target announced it was ending its Canadian experiment and closing all of its stores here. Many have speculated on what went wrong in this strategic misstep. Impacts of Target’s withdrawal may be difficult to assess, but it will certainly hit the retail real estate… Read more »
Financing public infrastructure
Description: On Tuesday, January 13, the Quebec government announced that the provincial pension fund, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, would make a $5 billion investment in the province’s transportation network. The pension fund will provide both the financing and the management for these assets. This mixing of political and pension goals may… Read more »
How about those fees for flying?
Description: Air Canada recently reported its best quarter in corporate history. No doubt all those extra fees airline customers have to pay fit somewhere into that profitable picture. In the US, this so-called ancillary income – where it is disclosed – is up from $2.5 billion back in 2005 to $31.5 billion for 2013. That’s… Read more »
The bailout story
Description: One intriguing chapter in the most current report by Canada’s Auditor General, Michael Ferguson, discussed the AG’s examination of the 2009 government bailouts of Chrysler and General Motors. Ferguson reported as much as $4 billion of the governments’ investment could be lost if the federal and Ontario governments trade in their shares too early…. Read more »
Burnley Understanding Financial Accounting, 3rd Canadian Edition
Kimmel Financial Accounting, 8th Canadian Edition
Weygandt Accounting Principles, 9th Canadian Edition
Kimmel Survey of Accounting, 2nd Edition
Kieso Intermediate Accounting, 13th Canadian Edition
Weygandt Managerial Accounting, 6th Canadian Edition
Farmer Cost Accounting, 1st Edition
Savage Accounting Information Systems, 1st Edition