Rechercher dans la communauté

"Waiting in the wings is a new tech incubator in downtown Montreal...unveiled Dec 1" I wonder what they're referring to? http://montrealgazette.com/business/millions-in-funding-available-for-up-and-coming-businesses Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/two-montrealers-striving-to-improve-citys-economic-lot?__lsa=4920-2f19 Among the people charged with promoting Montreal’s economic development, Éric Lemieux and Dominique Anglade are on the front lines. They’re battling with other cities around the world as Montreal vies for scarce new jobs and investment dollars, often competing against lucrative incentives offered by other jurisdictions. Lemieux is trying to breathe new life into the city’s financial sector while Anglade seeks out high-tech companies, aerospace firms and life science businesses willing to invest here. Banks and insurance companies have moved their headquarters to Toronto and local stock exchanges have closed but Lemieux, who heads the private-public agency known as Finance Montreal, sees new opportunities ahead. “Canada has a stable economy with good financial regulation,” he says, and the country emerged from the 2008-09 financial crisis with a healthy banking sector. That should help to attract international banking activities. The city has an “excellent pool of talent supplied by its universities and business schools,” he says, with 8,000 students enrolled in finance programs. It also boasts much cheaper operating costs than places like New York and Boston. “Banks like BNP Paribas, Société Générale and Morgan Stanley all made the decision to locate some of their operations here.” Montreal has over 100,000 jobs in the financial sector and derives close to 7 per cent of local GDP from the 3,000 financial firms working here. It’s become an important centre for pension fund management, led by the giant provincial agency the Caisse de dépot et placement as well as other large players such as PSP Investments and Fiera Capital. The sector includes more than 250 money-management firms. The city is developing a new area of expertise in financial derivatives like futures and options on stocks, currencies and bonds, which are traded on the Montreal Exchange. And financial technology is also a selling point for Montreal. It has a growing presence in software development and information technology for the asset management industry, as traders look for every technical edge they can get. Part of Lemieux’s effort comes through the International Financial Centre program, which offers employment-based tax credits to financial firms that set up international operations here. “I think it’s a good success story,” he says. “There are more than 60 companies and 1,000 jobs that have located here” under the plan. “Seventy per cent of them would not be in Montreal if there wasn’t this support. We’re talking of $100 million in direct and indirect benefits.” Another important asset is the local venture capital industry, which finances startups and early-stage firms founded by entrepreneurs. The sector is led by such funding institutions as Teralys Capital and the Fonds de Solidarité. Put it all together and the portrait of the city doesn’t look too bad. According to the Global Financial Index — an international ranking that measures both size and industry perceptions — Montreal is the world’s 18th financial centre, up from 31st spot four years ago. Dominique Anglade runs Montreal International, the agency that prospects worldwide for foreign direct investment on behalf of the 82 municipalities in the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal. Like Lemieux, she sees fierce competition for investment dollars. In this tough environment, the Montreal area has had its share of successes. 2013 was an exceptional year, as Montreal International helped to secure a record $1.2 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI). The year just ended will fall short of that mark but will “continue our momentum,” says Anglade. The city was recognized as having the best attraction strategy in North America in a survey by FDI Magazine, a sister publication to Britain’s Financial Times. The record performance was driven by several major expansions of foreign multinationals in the Montreal area, including French video-game maker Ubisoft and Swedish telecom giant Ericsson. The presence of multinationals is critical to the Montreal economy. They account for 20 per cent of local GDP and nine per cent of jobs, as well as a large share of private research and development. Montreal International’s task is to convince them not only to stay but to invest and expand here. Multinationals often pit one plant location against another to see which one will produce the best value proposition. Montreal International’s job is to stay in constant touch with the companies that have a presence here to find out what they want to accomplish and what they need to survive. Anglade targets certain niches where the city is already strong such as information technology, video games, special effects for movies and TV, aerospace and life sciences. Information technology represented by far the biggest share of the new money coming into the city in 2013. The video game industry also remains a strong performer, with five of the world’s top 10 selling games produced in Montreal. A significant percentage of deals — about 60 per cent — involve government financial assistance through provincial tax credits but Anglade doesn’t apologize for the financial aid offered to the private sector. “The competition in the U.S. has no limit. They have billions in terms of incentives and that’s why we have to be extremely strategic in Montreal and focus on specific sectors.” She notes that Swedish appliance maker Electrolux opted to close its plant in nearby L’Assomption, employing 1,300, and shifted operations to Tennessee after it was offered a rich package of incentives by three levels of government. Still, in industries that require more skill and knowledge, the availability of talent is Montreal’s strong point, Anglade says. “One of the surprises that people have about Montreal is its talent pool. I can’t tell you how many companies have said ‘wow, this is amazing’ when they start to fill positions here. It’s why we need to stress the importance of education. It’s critical for the future of Quebec.”

Toronto tops Montreal for global career? Not really KARL MOORE AND DANIEL NOVAK From Friday's Globe and Mail Published Friday, Aug. 13, 2010 6:00AM EDT http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/career-advice/on-the-job/article1671292.ece Many students fall in love with Montreal during their years at McGill, yet feel they must move to Toronto if they want a career with an international firm. However, our analysis of the largest companies in Canada suggests that Montreal and Toronto offer about the same level of opportunity for a global career. Toronto is home to the national headquarters of most foreign multinationals with subsidiaries in Canada. However, it is important to note that these Canadian headquarters are satellites of their foreign parents and usually not engaged in international management. Worldwide headquarters, on the other hand, are centres for global strategic decision making. They not only maintain an international outlook in their day-to-day operations, but also open doors for people seeking global careers. The global head office of a firm is simply the more important node in the network of a multinational. So how do Montreal and Toronto stack up on being home to global multinational enterprises? To determine the attractiveness of each city, we first selected the top 150 companies in Canada in terms of revenues earned in 2009. We then kept only those publicly listed firms with substantial foreign revenues (at least 20 per cent) and international headquarters in either the Toronto or Montreal regions. We put to the side privately held companies because it is very difficult to find accurate data on them. We ended up with a dozen Canadian multinationals in each of the two cities. Among those firms in Toronto, three quarters are in the financial industry. They include major banks like RBC, Scotiabank and TD, and other financial services giants like Manulife, Sun Life, Brookfield Asset Management and Fairfax Financial Holdings. So it’s clear that Canada’s largest city is also its financial capital. In fact, the Greater Toronto Area’s financial and investment services sector employs more than 230,000 people, making it the third largest in North America after New York and Chicago. And you will often hear finance students in the halls of McGill refer to Toronto as “where the action is” when discussing their future careers. In the financial sector, Montreal is well positioned as a low-cost number two city with some 100,000 jobs – no slouch, but Toronto is clearly the winner here. Though Montreal’s portfolio of Canadian multinationals is slightly more modest in terms of total revenues, it is more diversified. Montreal’s major international headquarters include those of Power Corp., Bombardier, CN, SNC-Lavalin, CGI and Molson Coors (headquarters split between Montreal and Denver). Altogether these firms offer strategic access to a wide range of industries and many of them have emerged as leaders on the international stage. Bombardier has more than 70,000 employees in over 60 countries. Its aerospace division is the world’s third largest civil aircraft manufacturer and its transportation division is a major player in the thriving rail equipment manufacturing and servicing industry. SNC Lavalin also stands out from Montreal’s list as one of the world’s engineering and construction giants, with over 21,000 permanent employees running projects in over 100 countries. Half of the company’s business takes place outside North America, with projects throughout five continents. CGI group, an expert in IT services, is also worthy of mention. It has gone from being purely local two decades ago to successfully venturing into the U.S., establishing a widespread presence in Europe, and positioning itself in the booming Indian IT market. Hey, even Barack Obama praised the company during one of his campaign speeches. So Montreal offers some interesting opportunities in a number of industries, but one issue students raise is that you really should speak a reasonable amount of French to work in Montreal. It’s a fair enough point, but if you want to have a global career, doesn’t it make sense to pick up a second language? In fact, how could you have an international career with just one language? If you want to learn French it is much easier to learn in Montreal, where the two languages flow naturally. Besides, most students from across the country who come to McGill already have a steady base of French to work with, so it’s just a matter of improving it. In our experience, our French-speaking colleagues are delighted to help their peers with their French. So when you look at the stats, Toronto is the crown city of Canadian business, but when it comes to a global career Montreal is not far behind. Karl Moore is an associate professor and Daniel Novak is a BCom student, both at the Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University.

(Courtesy of The Globe and Mail)

Feb. 26 (Bloomberg) -- New York’s biggest banks and securities firms may relinquish 8 million square feet of office space this year, deepening the worst commercial property slump in more than a decade as they abandon a record amount of property. JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., bankrupt Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and industry rivals have vacated 4.6 million feet, a figure that may climb by another 4 million as businesses leave or sublet space they no longer need, according CB Richard Ellis Group Inc., the largest commercial property broker. Banks, brokers and insurers have fired more than 177,000 employees in the Americas as the recession and credit crisis battered balance sheets. Financial services firms occupy about a quarter of Manhattan’s 362 million square feet of office space and account for almost 40 percent now available for sublease, CB Richard Ellis data show. “Entire segments of the industry are gone,” said Marisa Di Natale, a senior economist at Moody’s Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “We’re talking about the end of 2012 before things actually start to turn up again for the New York office market.” The amount of available space may reach 15.6 percent by the end of the year, the most since 1996, according to Los Angeles- based CB Richard Ellis. Vacancies are already the highest since 2004 and rents are down 5 percent, the biggest drop in at least two decades. In 2003, the city had 14.8 million square feet available for sublease. If financial firms give up as much as CB Richard Ellis expects, that record will be broken. ‘Wild Card’ CB Richard Ellis’s figures don’t include any space Bank of America may relinquish at the World Financial Center in lower Manhattan, where Merrill Lynch & Co., the securities firm it acquired last month, occupies 2.8 million square feet. Brookfield Properties Inc., the second-biggest owner of U.S. office buildings by square footage, owns the Financial Center. Merrill “is a wild card right now,” said Robert Stella, principal at Boston-based real estate brokerage CresaPartners. Manhattan’s availability rate -- vacancies plus occupied space that is on the market -- was 12.3 percent at the end of January, up more than 50 percent compared with a year earlier and almost 9 percent from December, according to CB Richard Ellis. Commercial real estate prices dropped almost 15 percent last year, more than U.S. house prices, Moody’s Investors Service said in a Feb. 19 report. The decline returned values to 2005 levels, according to the Moody’s/REAL Commercial Property Price Indexes. SL Green The Bloomberg Office REIT Index fell 25 percent since the start of January, with SL Green Realty, the biggest owner of Manhattan skyscrapers, slumping 50 percent. Vornado Realty Trust, whose buildings include One and Two Penn Plaza in Midtown, has fallen 36 percent. SL Green of New York gets 41 percent of its revenue from financial firms, including 13 percent from Citigroup, according to its Web site. Bank of America plans to give up 530,000 square feet at 9 West 57th St. as it completes a move to 1 Bryant Park. New York- based Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is leaving 1.3 million square feet of offices at 1 New York Plaza and 77 Water St. as it prepares to move to new headquarters near the World Trade Center site. JPMorgan put 320,000 square feet of Park Avenue offices on the market after scooping up rival Bear Stearns Cos. last year along with the company’s 45-story headquarters tower at 383 Madison Ave. Citigroup has put 11 floors, or 326,000 square feet, on the market at the 59-story Citigroup Center at Lexington Avenue and 53rd Street, bank spokesman Jon Diat said in an e-mail. The tower is owned by Mortimer Zuckerman’s Boston Properties Inc. Moving Out “We’ve been having conversations for two and a half years with Citigroup, and it’s been very clear to us that for the right economic transaction, they would move out of virtually any space in midtown Manhattan that they have,” Boston Properties President Douglas Linde said on a conference call last month. Boston Properties is also expecting to receive about 490,000 square feet back from Lehman Brothers at 399 Park Ave. as part of the bank’s liquidation. That space “will be a monumental challenge” to fill, said Michael Knott, senior analyst at Newport Beach, California-based Green Street Advisors. “They’re going to have to really bend over backwards on rate, or make the strategic decision to sit on it for an extended period of time.” Zuckerman said in an interview he doesn’t expect the increase in sublets to be a long-term problem for landlords. “You’re not going to be able to get for the space what you were able to get a year ago,” he said. “But in a year or two, in my judgment, the space will be absorbed.” Future Forecast Landlords must be prepared for a slow recovery, said Di Natale of Moody’s Economy.com. Commercial vacancy rates climbed for almost a year and a half after the last recession ended in late 2001. Still, CB Richard Ellis Tri-State Chairman Robert Alexander said New York’s financial community will regenerate. “In the late ‘80s, we lost Drexel Burnham Lambert and we lost Salomon Brothers, and we lost Thomson McKinnon,” Alexander said. “New York City survived.”

CAE on deck for $500-million defence program By David Pugliese , Canwest News ServiceFebruary 13, 2009 11:02 AM Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be in Montreal Friday where he is expected to announce a new aerospace training facility that will provide work to CAE and other high-tech firms in Canada. The contract to CAE and its partners, which could over time be worth up to $500 million, arrives at a time when the Harper government needs to be seen to provide work and create jobs for Canadians during the recession. Last year, the government selected CAE as the winner of a Defence Department program known as the Operational Training Systems Provider or OTSP. But the actual awarding of the contract was delayed, at first by the election and then by other political developments. OTSP will see the creation of aerospace training facilities to teach Canadian Forces aircrews how to fly new transport planes and helicopters, as well as aircraft to be bought in the future for search and rescue. It is unclear at this point how many new aerospace jobs will be created. Montreal-based CAE, one of the world’s largest aviation simulation firms, had been deemed by the federal government as the only qualified bidder for the program. Defence officials privately say the OTSP program, which will include new training facilities and simulators at different locations in the country, will provide the air force with a common infrastructure for teaching crews on a number of aircraft. The project would run over the next 20 years and include training on new C-130J transport aircraft and other planes that will be purchased in the future. The final value of the deal will depend on how much training for various aircraft fleets will be eventually be included. The initial deal for CAE will focus on the C-130J aircraft and is expected to be worth around $250 million. The CAE team that will work on the project includes Xwave Defence and Aerospace in Ottawa; MacDonald Dettwiler of Richmond, B.C.; NGRAIN of Vancouver; Atlantis Systems International of Brampton, Ont.; Bombardier of St-Laurent, Que., and: Simgraph of Laval, Que. The announcement is seen by the Tories as a good news story as the Harper government has faced criticism from domestic aerospace and defence firms for not spending enough money in Canada. The government has earmarked more than $8 billion for new aircraft purchased from U.S. firms but Canadian companies have complained they have seen little work from those projects. On Thursday, parliamentarians were also calling for stricter oversight on how the Defence Department spends tax dollars after yet another internal audit found a lack of management oversight on a major equipment support project. The Ottawa Citizen reported that Defence Department auditors concluded the government has no idea whether it is getting value for money from a Canadian Forces communications project worth more than $290 million because it is not enforcing the terms of the contract. Defence Minister Peter MacKay found himself answering questions in the Commons from both the NDP and Liberal parties about ongoing problems with military procurement and the growing secrecy over such troubled deals. But according to MacKay the department has strict review policies already in place. “The procurement process is accountable and is transparent,” he noted. But Liberal defence critic Denis Coderre pointed out that previous audits had raised concerns about multi-billion dollar equipment purchases. “Clearly there needs to be big changes made on how this department can be made more accountable and responsible,” added NDP defence critic Dawn Black. “They spend billions and billions of dollars and Canadians have a right to know about what is going on.”

High tech US firms outsource to Montreal Tue, 2008-11-11 06:03. David Cohen An IT recruitment agency in Montreal says there has been a spike in the number of American companies crossing the border into Canada -- especially Montreal -- to do their software development and to save money. Kovasys Technology cites the unstable economy in the US, and massive layoffs. It says more and more companies are deciding to save money and move their IT operations to a cheaper but not out of the way location, and for many, that means Montreal. Quebec introduced subsidies for high tech companies less than a year ago.

Big Apple starting to crumble Janet Whitman, Financial Post Published: Thursday, November 06, 2008 NEW YORK -- The Big Apple is losing its shine. After years of benefiting from consumer bingeing on everything from luxury lofts to US$99 hamburgers, New York is seeing a dramatic turn in its fortunes as Wall Street stumbles. Investment banks and other financial-services firms here have cut tens of thousands of high-wage jobs and many more pink slips still could be on the way as they grapple with the deepening credit crisis. This year's Wall Street bonus pool, which makes up the bulk of the pay for high-flying financial executives, is forecast to be chopped in half to US$16-billion. Businesses are already feeling the pinch. Revenue at some high-end Manhattan restaurants are down an estimated 20% this year and the once sizzling real-estate market is cooling fast. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said this week that the big drop in tax revenue collected from financial firms is forcing him to renege on planned US$400 property tax rebates for homeowners and to mull a 15% income tax hike. Economists said yesterday that the downturn could resemble New York's financial crisis in the early 1970s, when the city nearly went bankrupt and crime rates skyrocketed. "Compensation is going to be way down and that's going to weigh on restaurants and retailers and the housing market as well," said Mark Vitner, senior economist at Charlotte, N.C.-based bank Wachovia Corp. "We're going to have a very difficult climb back out of this. The recovery might begin in the middle of next year, but that just means things will stop getting worse." Mr. Vitner said it could take at least three years before New York starts to see strong growth and five years before the city gets back to normal. After the dot-com bust in 1999 and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, New York soon roared back, fueled by Wall Street's recovery. But the city can't depend on Wall Street this time around. "The flavour is different," said James Brown, a New York state Department of Labor regional analyst who focuses on New York City. "It's not clear how much growth we can expect from our financial sector in the next upturn. We don't know to what degree they may not be as profitable and able to lavish the same high salaries in the next boom as they have in the past booms." With the U.S. government looking to avoid sowing the seeds for a future financial crisis by cracking down on executive bonuses and limiting how much financial firms can wager, Wall Street's recovery could be slow. That's bad news for New York State, which depends on the financial sector for 20% of its revenue. The state already is facing its biggest budget gap in history, at US$47-billion over the next four years. The crisis last week prompted New York State Gov. David Paterson to ask U.S. Congress for billions of dollars in federal assistance. New York City has been particularly hard hit. For every Wall Street job another three or four will be lost in the city. Despite the doom and gloom, Mr. Bloomberg assured New Yorkers at a press briefing this week that the city wouldn't return "to the dark days of the 1970s when service cuts all but destroyed our quality of life." The mayor, who is seeking a third term to guide the city through the crisis, said New York is in much better fiscal shape than it was then and won't make the same mistakes. Still, he warned, it could be as many as five years before financial companies have to start paying city or state taxes again because of the half a trillion dollars in write-downs they have taken, which will offset future profits.

LIST :: http://www.financialpost.com/magazine/fp500/list.html The beat goes on The right numbers are up. But momentum? That’s another thing Cooper Langford, Financial Post Business Published: Tuesday, June 03, 2008 Related Topics Story tools presented by Good stories start in the middle of the action, so let's do that - specifically at the No. 162 spot on the 2008 edition of the Financial Post 500, our annual ranking of Canada's largest companies by revenue. In that position: Martinrea International Inc., a Vaughan, Ont.-based auto-parts maker that's put the pedal to the metal in pursuit of growth. In a year when the loonie hit par with the U.S. buck and belt-tightening at Detroit's Big Three throttled the auto sector, Martinrea did a surprising thing: It more than doubled its revenue to $2 billion. In the process, it also jumped 168 places, making it one of the highest-climbing firms on our list. That an upstart underdog in a declining sector can deliver such a positive outcome says a lot about the stories, themes and companies that define this year's FP500. Some firms have had great years, but for many others it was just the opposite. And in a lot of cases, one company's good fortune comes at the expense of others. Martinrea, for example, made its big leap because it was able to acquire a major rival at depressed market prices. Likewise, factors such as the price of oil - which rose to within a hair's breadth of US$100 per barrel in 2007 - boosted most oil producers while hammering other companies that were directly or indirectly hurt by the high cost of fuel. Martinrea's success is revealing in one other way as well. With total revenue of all the FP500 companies increasing by just $44 billion in 2007 - to $1.583 trillion from $1.539 trillion - the little parts maker's $1.1-billion revenue gain represents fully 2.5% of the entire increase. When you're counting on a company that represents a meagre 0.1% of the total FP500 revenue to do that much heavy lifting, you have to wonder about the strength of the underlying economy and the prospects for the year ahead. Meanwhile, the theme of surprise extended to some of the largest companies on the FP500, too. Start with Royal Bank of Canada, which returns as No. 1 overall. No one doubted that it would retain its crown as Canada's largest corporation, but how many thought it would also lead our list of top revenue gainers? After all, the financial sector was hammered last year by fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis and the choked credit markets that followed. Yet RBC - thanks to its well-diversified base of revenue streams - shone through with a year-over-year increase of more than $5 billion. And then there's EnCana Corp. (No. 13), Canada's largest energy company and one of its most profitable firms. Many people will no doubt be surprised to find that it tops our list of biggest profit decliners. Granted, it still earned $4.3 billion, but that's off $2.1 billion from 2006, despite a 24% increase in revenue to $23 billion. Blame a steep mid-year dip in the price of natural gas, the erosion of margins due to the rising dollar and ever-escalating costs that resulted from shortages of materials and skilled labour. (A complete series of "Top 5" breakout lists and profiles accompanies this story.) ANYONE LOOKING for more predict-able outcomes can still hang their hat on the global commodity boom. While price increases didn't match those of 2006, there was still enough steam in the market for it to have a major impact on the list - powering up some of 2007's largest percentage revenue gains. Yamana Gold Inc. (No. 340), for example, leapt onto the FP500 with a 318% increase, to $800 million, following its $3.5-billion acquisition in September of Meridian Gold Inc. Soaring oil prices continued to stoke more than a few bottom lines across the energy sector - average revenue growth there came in at 18.8%. Leading the way was Calgary-based Harvest Energy Trust (No. 94) with a revenue increase of 193.2%, to $4 billion. This gain was due, in part, to its mid-2006 acquisition of North Atlantic Refining Ltd. in Come By Chance, N.L., a groundbreaking $1.6-billion deal that turned Harvest into Canada's first vertically integrated oil and gas royalty trust. At the same time, however, energy costs - coupled with the strong dollar - weighed heavily on central Canada. They wreaked havoc particularly on forestry companies already reeling from the collapse of the U.S. housing market. Indeed, of the 19 forestry firms on our ranking, only four avoided outright revenue declines. Nine of the remaining firms saw a double-digit fall in their income. Weyerhaeuser Canada Ltd. turned in the worst performance, stumbling to the No. 384 position from No. 231 as its revenue fell to $648 million - a 50% decrease, which earned it the dubious distinction of this year's "Worst Fall." The picture looks only a little brighter in the beleaguered manufacturing sector, where half of the 28 ranked firms posted revenue declines. In broad terms, though, the economy absorbed the worst of these impacts. Much like corporate revenue and profit (which climbed 4.4% for the FP500 as a whole, compared to a 34% rise in 2006), GDP growth held steady, clocking in at 2.7%, the same as 2006, but down from 2.9% in 2005. Unemployment, meanwhile, fell to 6%, its lowest level in 33 years. These kinds of numbers, it seems, were good enough to keep consumers in stores with their wallets open, as a look at some of the newcomers to the FP500 suggests. For evidence, look no further than the No. 288 position, occupied this year by consumer electronics manufacturer LG Electronics Canada, with revenue of $1 billion. A few ranks further down, at No. 311, you'll find Kia Canada Inc., a subsidiary of Korean auto maker Kia Motors, with revenue of almost $900 million. Equally intriguing - given fears for the future of the music and video retail business - is the arrival on the FP500 of HMV Canada Inc. at No. 500, with revenue of $407 million. Granted, HMV's revenue is actually down 0.6%, yet it still made the jump from No. 510 last year on the Next 300 list. DEALING WITH volatility and a rapidly changing economic landscape may have been the biggest theme in corporate Canada during 2007, but it wasn't the only one: Foreign takeovers also swept the market. The headlines were bigger in 2006, when iconic Canadian firms such as Hudson's Bay Co., Inco Ltd. and Dofasco fell into foreign hands. But it wasn't until last year that the number and value of takeover deals hit truly astonishing levels. In the first six months of 2007, the value of foreign M&A activity in Canada soared to $153 billion, according to investment banking firm Crosbie & Co. Inc., eclipsing the total of $102 billion for all of 2006. By the end of the year, the value of deals reached a record-setting $186.8 billion, with international miner Rio Tinto plc's $44.9-billion acquisition of Alcan Inc. (No. 7) leading the way. Other deals included Houston-based Marathon Oil Corp.'s $7.1-billion bid for Western Oil Sands Inc. (No. 296), Abu Dhabi National Energy Co.'s $5-billion takeout of PrimeWest Energy Trust (No. 398) and IBM Corp.'s $4.4-billion acquisition of software maker Cognos Inc. (No. 261). With those kinds of names and numbers in the air, it's no surprise that the flurry of activity reignited the age-old debate about the "hollowing" of corporate Canada. Dominic D'Alessandro, who recently announced he'll retire next year as CEO of Manulife Financial Corp. (No. 2), weighed in during his annual address to shareholders in May 2007, saying: "I sometimes worry that we may all wake up and find that, as a nation, we have lost control of our affairs." Others wondered what all the fuss was about. In a March 2007 report, the Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity argued that Canada's ability to produce companies that are global leaders far outweighs the losses it has witnessed due to foreign takeovers. Among the examples it used to make its case were Research in Motion Ltd. (No. 65), North American convenience-store giant Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. (No. 24) and ATS Automation Tooling Systems Inc. (No. 367), a manufacturing-solutions firm active in the international health-care, electronics and automotive sectors. We'll keep our opinions to ourselves, but here's one notable fact: According to Crosbie & Co., Canadian firms made twice as many acquisitions abroad as foreign firms did here. At $93 billion, however, the total value of those deals was only half the value of foreign takeovers in Canada. GIVEN ALL that acquisition activity in 2007, it's almost inevitable that some companies now on our list will have disappeared when it comes time to compile the FP500 for 2008. Others may fall off because their revenue stumbles to levels where they no longer make the cut-off. But the FP500 is a renewable resource; for every firm that leaves, there's another that takes its place. A scan of the Next 300, which follows our main ranking, offers hints. Companies that stand out include The Data Group Income Fund, which rose more than 100 positions to No. 507 and was just $10 million shy of making the big chart, as well as rising food manufacturer Lassonde Industries Inc. at No. 505, up from No. 545 in 2006. The biggest wild card for next year's ranking, however - one that affects nearly every company on both the FP500 and the Next 300 - has to do with where the economy will take them. The FP500 as a whole hasn't had a year of revenue decline since 2004 (and the drop was a miniscule $2 billion), but it looks like a distinct possibility if current GDP forecasts prove accurate. In late April, the Bank of Canada called for GDP growth of just 1.4% in 2008, with most private-sector forecasts in the same ballpark. While Canada's domestic markets should do okay, a weak U.S. economy will drag us down. Results like that, at least a full percentage point lower than 2007's 2.7%, would make it hard for FP500 revenue totals to stay out of the red. If so, spunky companies like Martinrea may be fewer and farther between when we do this again next year.

Lawyer exodus shutters Desjardins 35 Lawyers Join Rival Lavery Firm; Quebec's Spun Off Jim Middlemiss, Financial Post Published: Saturday, August 18, 2007 An era will end for the 100-lawyer law firm Desjardins Ducharme LLP in September. The once-esteemed law firm will close after more than 50 years in business. Thirty-five of its key Montreal business lawyers will leave the firm to join rival Lavery, de Billy LLP at the end of next month. Concurrently, the Quebec City office of Desjardins, which comprises 50 lawyers and merged into the firm in 1992, has spun out and will operate under its old name Stein Monast LLP. [/url] Another seven litigators from the Montreal office will join litigation specialist Donati Maisonneuve LLP. The final eight lawyers will either retire or have said they are moving to other firms or into corporations. "We have accounted for everyone," said Gerard Coulombe, chairman of Desjardins, who explained that "Quebec City couldn't join the Lavery deal because it would have created too big a firm[for that region.]" Jean Brunet, managing partner of the Quebec City office, agreed: "You can't have a law firm of 100 lawyers in the area. "We're putting down the principles of how it will work in Quebec City," he said of the new firm, adding that he does not rule out opening a smaller Montreal office. The addition of 35 lawyers to Lavery creates a 180-lawyer firm, making it the largest independent provincial firm. The split is no surprise and has been rumoured for weeks once Desjardins started bleeding lawyers to other firms. "We took a good hard look at the various practices and groups lawyers," said Richard Dolan, managing partner at Lavery, said. "We settled on some very strong, solid business lawyers and bankruptcy and insolvency lawyers who had complementary practices to our practice mix. This is a really exciting business opportunity for us." Lavery has always had strong business in insurance, said Mr. Dolan, "The lawyers are going to bring additional bench strength to our corporate merger and acquisitions practice and the insolvency group." Of late it has been a tough go for some independent law firms, squeezed by the creation of large national firms, especially in Montreal, where several Toronto-based firms have opened offices or merged with local firms. In the spring, Goodman and Carr LLP, a 90-lawyer Toronto firm, said it was dissolving its practice. Kip Cobbett, a lawyer with Stikeman Elliott LLP in Montreal, said it is "very sad" to see Desjardins' demise. "It was a wonderful firm. It will certainly change the landscape." The agreement is subject to a vote by the Lavery partners expected later this month. jmiddlemiss@nationalpost.com