- 8,154,714 doses have been administered in Canada, as of writing. 19.4% of Canadians have received at least one dose and 76.8% of doses delivered have been administered.
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Percent of population vaccinated: Israel: 61.5%, U.K: 47.3%, U.S: 35.7%, Canada: 19.4%, E.U: 15.3%.
- Canada is expects to receive 1.2 million doses from Pfizer this week.
- Our COVID-19 infection rate is now higher than that of the U.S.
April 12, 2021
Ready for takeoff
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Markets
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TSX | 19201.28 | -0.14% |
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S&P 500 | 4127.99 | -0.02% |
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DOW | 33745.40 | -0.16% |
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NASDAQ | 13850.00 | -0.36% |
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Gold | 1732.40 | -0.02% |
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Oil | 59.73 | 0.05% |
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Dollar | 0.80 | -0.3009% |
Air Canada and the federal government have been circling the relief package runway for months now, and they're finally ready to land a deal (we filed this story late, so you'll need to forgive the tortured puns).
What happened: The feds and Air Canada agreed on terms that will give the airline access to $5.8 billion in liquidity through a mix of equity investment and loans.
By the numbers:
- If you've ever wanted to own shares in our national carrier, here's some good news: now you do! The federal government will take an equity stake worth $500 million at $23.1793 per share — roughly 6% of the company — as part of the deal. The government will also get millions of warrants giving them the right to buy more stock.
- Air Canada will get access to around $5.38 billion of credit.
- $1.4 billion of the total loan package will be used to support customer refunds.
Refund, please
The federal government was eager to make sure that customers would get refunds for flights they couldn't take during the pandemic, and this deal requires Air Canada to offer full cash refunds for anyone who had to cancel travel plans since February 2020.
Air Canada will also have to fulfill a number of other obligations, including:
- Restoring flights to communities where service has been suspended during COVID.
- Maintaining employment levels no lower than they were on April 1st.
- Limiting dividends, share buybacks, and executive compensation.
- Following through on orders for 33 Airbus planes built in Montreal and 40 Boeing 737 Max's.
What's next: It remains to be seen how this deal will impact the rest of the sector. WestJet, for example, wasn't part of the negotiations and discussions between them and the feds are apparently ongoing. This is unlikely to be the last announcement of support for the airlines.
That makes two of us. Bank of Canada (BoC) says things are looking pretty good for businesses and consumers.
Sales on sales. Business sentiment is the third-highest it's been since 2003.
- Around two-thirds of companies said their sales are back to pre-pandemic levels or have surpassed them.
- Over 50% of companies are planning to add new hires as the outlook on sales improves
- Businesses are looking to invest to keep up with rising demand
- Firms expect inflation to go over 2% in the next two years
- The BoC reports that the pandemic widened the gap between spending and wage expectations for a lot of people.
- Household savings also increased across Canada to $180 billion in 2020. That’s ~$6,000 a person or equivalent to 100 pairs of Crocs.
- Respondents said they plan to spend more on travel and social activities (count me in, please).
- A majority of people expect their spending habits to return to normal by next year.
Not so fast
While things are looking good for some sectors, the Bank’s responses don’t account for the latest lockdown measures that might reduce the optimism we’re getting from the survey.
High-contact services like tourism and non-essential businesses still have a ways to go before they expect sales to return to pre-pandemic levels.
And then, of course, there's the I-word — I'm talking about inflation, which some economists believe could take off once pent up consumer demand floods into the economy.
Bottom line: We hope that the positive sentiment we're seeing now is justified, but we aren't yet out of the woods when it comes to getting the economy back on track.
China's central bank is doing a little spring cleaning, starting with an order for Jack Ma's Ant Group to restructure its entire business. That’s like someone telling you to renovate your entire house when all you wanted to do was re-organize a closet or two. OK, we admit, this is worse.
- An affiliate of Alibaba, Ant Group is the world’s largest ($280 billion) fintech company, with over one billion people using its Alipay service.
As part of the plan, Ant will...
- Become a financial holding firm, giving regulators more oversight on how the company generates and lends its profits
- Ramp up data protection for its users
- Make its services more transparent to consumers to reduce anti-competitive practices
- Return to its roots and focus its core business on micropayments
Big picture: This isn't the first time authorities in China have curbed Ant's operations. Regulators put the brakes on Ant's record-setting $37 billion IPO last November and recently hit Alibaba, another one of Jack Ma's companies, with a hefty fine.
It's another milestone in China's campaign to cut some of its tech giants down to size.
We’re in year 2 of this pandemic (sorry to remind you) and while the vaccines are coming along, we’re probably going to be wearing masks for a while still. So as long as we’re stuck with these things, why not upgrade yours to the best you can get?
Not to brag or anything, but we’ve been using Myant 95 masks, and we have to say they’re a major improvement.
Why? Myant 95’s are breathable, comfortable, and reusable while still filtering out >95% of particulates. And they do it without the use of disposable filters.
These masks are top of the line because the Canadian company that makes them, Myant, is an innovator in fabric and wearable tech. They’ve applied their considerable talents and brain power to the problem of masks, and the Myant 95 is the product of that.
Major League Baseball trading cards are on deck to get the NFT treatment.
What's happening: Topps, the 83-year old card company, is partnering with MLB to issue its card in digital form as NFTs.
The project mirrors the NBA's forway into NFTs with NBA TopShot, which has done USD 500 million in sales.
- Sales on TopShot peaked in February and have declined since then, so it's possible the NFT trading card craze is winding down — but it's also possible that we are in the very early innings of a whole new business line.
Bottom line: Putting assets Topps' already owns online with NFTs costs them little and could potentially be a very lucrative new revenue stream. Expect other major sports leagues to get into NFTs soon (looking at you, NFL).
...In some cases. HSBC agreed to let Huawei peek at documents that might help stop the extradition of the Chinese telecom giant’s CFO Meng Wanzhou to the U.S.
Refresher: The U.S. accused Meng of misleading banks, including HSBC, about Huawei's relationship with a shell company that led banks to violate U.S. sanctions against Iran. She was detained in Vancouver, at the request of U.S. officials, in 2018 and has been under house arrest since.
- We don’t know what the documents say or the extent of the agreement yet.
- Meng's fight against her extradition to the U.S. are coming to a close, as final hearings are scheduled for next month.
Zoom out: Meng's case has put Canada and PM Trudeau in a tough spot, even more so when two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, were detained in China in an apparent retaliation.
Freeing Meng might ease tensions between the two countries, but it's unlikely to play a large role in whether China decides to free Kovrig and Spavor.
- Canada's pension board is expanding its offices to India.
- File this under "well, that seems wrong": Men named David have better chances of taking their company public on the TSX than women.
- Could Canada follow France's footsteps in banning some domestic flights to reduce carbon emissions?
- Microsoft bought an AI speech recognition firm for $20 billion.
- Tickets to board this swanky ship will set you back $3 million.
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This robot can mop and vacuum, but would also make a great friend if you're lonely.
- Russian officials used yeti sightings to attract tourists — and it worked.
- UFO reports surged during the pandemic as people had more time on their hands.