IR Leader
October 15, 2013

Top Stories

Are the Days of 'Older White Gentlemen' on Canadian Boards Numbered?

Take a look down the list of directors of public companies and you quickly deduce that this is a preserve of white males of a certain age. True, some board seats are held by women but they're few and far between.

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Canada's ETF Industry Maintains Strong Position Despite Market Volatility

New asset classes seen as a plus for advisors.

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Multilateral Instrument 51-105: How Private Placements Can Trigger Public Company Status in Canada

Multilateral Instrument 51-105 (MI 51-105) was adopted in 2012 by most of the provinces in Canada. It can cause an issuer that makes private placements into Canada to become subject to ongoing Canadian public company reporting obligations. In other words, the consequences of making a Canadian private placement can potentially be the same as if the issuer had completed an initial public offering in Canada by filing a prospectus with the Canadian securities regulators. Ontario was the only province that did not adopt MI 51-105, and Quebec has created some very generous exemptions; however, the need for caution about private placements into other provinces remains.

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Canada's Disclosure Rule Plans May Discourage Activist Investors

Canada's plans to significantly tighten rules that force disclosure by investors accumulating large stakes in companies are not popular with all shareholders, including the activist investor community that is now suggesting Canada may no longer be a target for shareholders trying to shake up management.

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Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Wants OSC to Force Firms to Add Female Directors

The giant Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan wants the province's securities regulator to require all public companies to have at least three women on their boards, saying a voluntary option is unlikely to have much impact.

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NYSE to End Subsidies for Nasdaq-Owned Market Services

NYSE Euronext will stop paying for New York Stock Exchange-listed companies to receive stock-market services provided by a former unit of Thomson Reuters Corp. that is now owned by rival Nasdaq OMX Group Inc.

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SEC Proposes Rules for Pay Ratio Disclosure

At an open meeting on September 18, 2013, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved for public comment proposed 'pay ratio' disclosure rules to implement Section 953(b) of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

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U.S. Securities Watchdog Proposes New Rules for "Dark Pools"

A U.S. securities industry watchdog has proposed new rules to monitor transactions in "dark pools" run on alternative trading systems (ATSs), rivals to traditional exchanges whose growth critics blame for less transparency in the stock market.

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Study: Firms That "Cast" Earnings Calls Underperform

Firms that only take questions from favorable analysts underperform in future quarters, according to a new working paper from researchers at Harvard and the London School of Economics.

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