Here are five things you need to know this morning:
Montreal port workers are on strike… Activity at Montreal’s busy port is grinding to a halt as longshoremen have launched a strike at two of the port’s terminals which will idle them until Thursday. The Viau and Maisonneuve facilities handle about 40 per cent of all activity at the port, and the worker’s union the Syndicat des débardeurs du port de Montréal said a lack of progress in negotiations has forced the move. The approximately 350 workers impacted by the strike have been without a contract since the last one expired in December.
… and U.S. dockworkers may soon be. The strike in Montreal is either well-timed or poorly timed, depending on your perspective, because of what’s happening in the U.S. right now where more than 45,000 dockworkers up and down the U.S. East and Gulf coasts are poised to walk off the job at midnight. It’s hard to understate how significant the impact of the walkout will be, with conservative estimates suggesting the cost to the economy will be about US$1 billion a day, with that price tag increasing the longer it goes on. The strike, if it happens, would be the first on the East Coast since 1977 and comes at a critical time in the calendar. Retailers are currently ramping up their imports of inventory to hopefully sell during the holiday season, not to mention what impact the strike would have in the U.S. election scheduled for a little over a month from now.
Quebecor still kicking tires on Corus, Globe says. The Globe & Mail is reporting that Quebecor Inc. is still interested in buying the assets of Corus Entertainment, but only if the latter’s lenders are willing to write off more than half of what the debt-laden company owes. The Globe says Quebecor is interested in acquiring the owner of Global Television and other media assets but only if the holders of more than $1 billion of Corus’ debt are willing to write off most of it. So far the lenders’ strategy has been to give Corus more time to come up with a payment plan.
U.S. pay TV is bundling up. DirecTV and Dish have agreed to combine in a deal that will create the biggest pay-TV provider in the U.S. Under terms of the deal announced this morning, DirecTV will acquire Dish’s assets for the princely sum of US$1 — but swallow US$9.75 billion of the company’s debt. And even that sum is contingent on Dish’s bondholders agreeing to take a haircut of at least $1.5 billion.
Plus ca change. After being passed by Toronto earlier this month, the Paris stock exchange has clawed back its lead in the market capitalization rankings as the total value of all stocks that trade in Paris is just shy of US$3.4 trillion. That’s higher than the total value of the just over $3.2 trillion combined for those that trade in Toronto. Toronto passed the CAC on the mostly pointless global ranking earlier this month, but French firms have rallied back thanks to a surge in valuations for luxury goods firms, linked to China’s economic stimulus plans announced last week. Paris’s market cap is now taking aim at that of London’s in a comparison that’s likely to ruffles a few more feathers on the other side of the English Channel.
