Monthly Archive: September 2009

Happy Birthday

Today marks the tenth anniversary of the first day of trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange when Manulife Financial went public. Since 1999, the company has quadrupled in size, much of it due to the $15 billion takeover of Hancock in 2004. Market cap has gone from $9 billion to $37 billion. More importantly for shareholders, anyone who was part of the initial public offering, hung on, and reinvested their dividends in shares, has enjoyed compound annual returns of more than 12 per cent. Bernie Madoff had to commit fraud to offer his clients the same! To celebrate, the company...

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A modest proposal

With a fall election in the offing, controversy will soon begin around the televised debates. In the last couple of elections, there has been much to-ing and fro-ing about which party leaders would be included. The television networks have tried to limit the numbers, but there was such a foofarah that they finally relented and all five parties (Conservative, Liberal, NDP, Bloc Quebecois and Green) were represented. The outcome was akin to a schoolyard brawl with too many voices and too little time. I’d like to go one step further and urge that we not only reduce the number of...

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