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Welcome to The Globe and Mail’s business and investing news quiz. Join us each week to test your knowledge of the stories making the headlines. Our business reporters come up with the questions, and you can show us what you know.
This week: Royal Bank of Canada posted second-quarter profit that beat analysts’ estimates. The bank’s profit jumped 7 per cent to $4-billion, or $2.74 per share, in the three months that ended April 30. But not all of the big banks could boast about such good news as earning season continued, with one receiving a significant downgrade. Meanwhile, WestJet also heard some troubling news. WestJet Encore pilots issued a 72-hour strike notice to management and the government, its union said on Wednesday.
Also: All deals were extra-large this week, as was government support for a couple of businesses.
1It was a week of megadeals. For instance, Canada’s Brookfield Corp. entered into exclusive talks to buy a majority stake in France’s Neoen in a deal that values the European company at about US$6.6-billion. What does Neoen do?
a. It makes plant-based food
b. It makes industrial-sized storage batteries
c. It generates renewable power
d. It mines metals crucial to the green transition
2Another day, another megadeal. Billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, known as the “Czech Sphinx” because of his aversion to publicity, struck a deal this week to buy which historic asset?
a. Britain’s Royal Mail
b. Paris’s secondary airport
c. Berlin’s tramcar network
d. Spain’s coal-fired generating plants
3Yet more megadeals: Which of the following multi-billion-dollar acquisitions is the only one that is NOT going ahead – at least, as of this week?
a. ConocoPhillips is buying Marathon Oil
b. Chevron is buying Hess Oil
c. BHP Group is buying Anglo American
d. Capital One is buying Discover
c. BHP Group is buying Anglo American. BHP Group’s $68-billion bid for fellow miner Anglo American expired this week after Anglo rejected BHP’s request to extend the takeover talks.
a. Existing home prices won’t fall
b. Ottawa won’t interfere with local housing policies
c. There will be no special deals for younger Canadians
d. He will increase housing support for older Canadians
a. Existing home prices won’t fall. Mr. Trudeau pledged to make housing more affordable for younger buyers while keeping home prices high for existing homeowners. If that strikes you as a contradiction, join the club.
5In another example of Ottawa’s odd sense of economics, how much did the federal government recently spend to create 10 jobs at a pasta maker in Brampton, Ont.?
a. $500,000
b. $1,000,000
c. $1,500,000
d. $1,700,000
d. $1,700,000. Yep, Ottawa spent $1.7-million in taxpayers’ money to help create 10 jobs. Corporate welfare is booming in Canada, according to Aaron Wudrick, domestic policy director at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. He estimates that federal business subsidies have more than doubled under the Trudeau government, to some $40-billion today from $17-billion in 2014.
6To be fair, some provincial governments are also splashing taxpayers’ money around with wild abandon. How much did Ontario Premier Doug Ford agree to pay the privately owned Beer Store so that his government can finally make good on a long-delayed promise to allow beer in the province’s corner stores?
a. $130-million
b. $195-million
c. $225-million
d. $270-million
7What is the Northern Super League?
a. A proposed free-trade zone for North America and Europe
b. A new Canadian women’s professional soccer league
c. A new professional hockey league that will operate during the summer
d. An online comedy show that has aroused controversy for its takedowns of prominent Canadian business figures
b. A new Canadian women’s professional soccer league. The NSL will start play next April with six teams in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax. It aims to ride the swelling interest in women’s pro sports.
8Revised figures published this week show:
a. The U.S. economy grew faster than previously thought in the first quarter of the year
b. The U.S. economy grew slower than previously thought in the first quarter of the year
c. U.S. inflation was worse than previously thought in the first quarter
d. U.S. consumer spending grew faster than previously thought in the first quarter
b. The U.S. economy grew slower in the first quarter of the year. The revised figures showed the U.S. economy expanded by only 1.3 per cent over the three months to March, compared with an original estimate of 1.6 per cent. Growth in consumer spending was revised down to 2 per cent from 2.5 per cent. However, inflation was lower than previously thought, at least as measured by personal consumption expenditures.
9Which Canadian bank saw its outlook lowered by credit rating agency Fitch this week?
a. Toronto-Dominion Bank
b. Bank of Nova Scotia
c. Bank of Montreal
d. National Bank
a. Toronto-Dominion Bank. Fitch Ratings said it lowered its outlook for TD Bank Group to negative from stable because of the potential repercussions from the bank’s anti-money-laundering problems in the United States.
10Glenn Chamandy was reinstated this week as chief executive of Montreal-based Gildan Activewear after months of turmoil that began when Gildan’s board of directors fired him in December. How much will the battle for control wind up costing Gildan shareholders?
a. About US$10-million
b. About US$25-million
c. About US$45-million
d. About US$65-million
d. About US$65-million. The five-month round trip from firing Mr. Chamandy to rehiring him is likely to wind up costing Gildan US$65-million or more. The expenses include legal and advisory fees as well as severances for departed executives.
11Securities trading changed this week when Canadian capital markets moved to a “T+1″ regime. What the heck does this mean?
a. One dollar will now be added to each transaction to cover clearing costs
b. All trades will now be completed within one business day
c. The price for any stock or bond trade will now incorporate a 1 per cent broker’s fee
d. Capital gains will now be calculated on the inflation-adjusted price of the security plus a 1-per-cent-a-year adjustment
b. All trades will now be completed within one business day. Stock and bond trades will now be completed within one business day of the trade rather than within two days as in the past. Among other things, shorter settlement times mean that money from selling securities will hit your investment account faster.
12How many times will the Bank of Canada cut interest rates this year, according to a new Reuters poll of economists?
a. Once
b. Twice
c. Three times
d. Four times
d. Four times. The economists polled by Reuters said the Bank of Canada will cut rates on June 5 and make three further cuts later in the year – although there is much less certainty about the last one.
How well did you do?
Answer all of the questions to see your result
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