Toronto Star
January
Did the year start with a bang or a whimper? The sight of Barrick chair John Thornton ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange Jan.2 gave some investors pause.“The new value champion,” as Barrick billed itself, was relaunching after the successful completion of the “merger” with Mark Bristow’s Africa-centric Randgold Resources.“Today Barrick is reborn,” the two leaders announced in a new year/new era letter to shareholders.The reborn Barrick slashed its corporate presence in Toronto and reshaped the board, which today is free of Canadians, unless you count Michael Evans, who lives in New York.All but forgotten now is the image of Peter Munk gliding through that shimmering gold leaf tower in Toronto bent on building a global mining giant headquartered in the province he once called “the heart of the Western world.” February
What a busy month for the Hudson’s Bay Co.Driven by American real estate operator Richard Baker, the storied retailer suddenly bid farewell to its president, announced the closure of its Home Outfitters chain of stores, closed the sale of the Lord & Taylor flagship on Fifth Avenue for $1.1 billion and launched a “fleet review” of its Saks OFF 5th stores.Baker’s predictable line was that the company was looking to reduce costs and improve profitability.
What he did not comment on publicly was the status of his hoped-for purchase of the roughly 18 million HBC shares held by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.Securing that 10-per-cent stake would allow him, he said, to “further demonstrate my commitment to the company.” Seen another way, the deal would help lay the groundwork for Baker’s Rupert of the Rhine to take private the company chartered in 1670.
March
“Out of an abundance of caution and in order to reassure the flying public of the aircraft’s safety,” Boeing announced on March 13 the suspension of its global fleet of 737 Max aircraft.Three days earlier Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 took off from Addis Ababa airport under sunny skies, only to crash six minutes later killing all 157 on board.The disaster came five months after Lion Air flight 610 plunged into the Java Sea killing all 189 on board.
Investigations of both crashes would reveal the pilots’ sickening inability to counteract Boeing’s new MCAS software, which was designed to enhance the pitch stability of the aircraft, but which could drive the plane nose uncontrollably downward.In readying the aircraft for return to service, Boeing announced that MCAS “can never command more stabilizer input than can be counteracted by the flight crew pulling back on the column.” That will do nothing to diminish the lawsuit launched by the Kirby Family Partnership, which is suing Boeing’s board, including CEO Dennis Muilenburg, alleging it breached its fiduciary duty by failing to investigate the aircraft’s safety between the two crashes, ignoring what Kirby calls “the biggest red flag an airline manufacturer can face.” Muilenburg would be fired two days before Christmas.
April
Narratively taking investors back to the land, Ethan Brown drew a pleasing picture of what the future could hold if they just opened their minds to a new definition of meat.“I am, like many, troubled by the fraying fabric of our rural heritage, one increasingly torn by vanquished towns, marginalized populations ensnared in an opioid crisis, and hidden factory farms,” Brown wrote in the preliminary prospectus for Beyond Meat.
“Instead of growing low-value commodity feed for animals, I see a future of farmers growing higher value protein crops for more direct human consumption via plant-based meat … I believe there is a new dawn for American agriculture and this conversion is our awakening hour.” There were skeptics aplenty, but Brown had carefully seeded his company through such alliances as Whole Foods and A&W with its Beyond Meat burger.
The push by Maple Leaf Foods and others into plant-based meat affirms that this is no mere trend.Sure the stock has plunged from its $235 high (that’s just crazy), but the world needs more climate-first CEOs.
May
Define “transformation agreement.” In trying to put a positive spin on the momentous news that the General Motors plant in Oshawa will cease its historic role in car manufacture, the automaker and Unifor announced they had reached a deal to “transition the GM Oshawa Assembly operations to parts manufacturing and advanced vehicle testing.” Specifically, $170 million will be invested in turning the plant into a much-diminished stamping facility, while a test track for autonomous vehicles will lend the impression that the Oshawa facility is key to the development of vehicles of the future.
That’s a faint illusion for a plant that once employed more than 20,000.The new jobs number? Three hundred.Despite valiant arguments for a privatized carmaker producing electric vehicles, it became clear that the city once at the forefront of car making was closing the book on a century of industry.
June
“As a dad, it’s tough trying to explain this to my kids.” With the Richelieu River serving as the picture perfect backdrop, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau offered an anecdote or two before announcing government initiatives aimed at both reducing the use of single-use plastics and passing producer responsibility back to business.
“How do you explain dead whales washing up on beaches around the world, their stomachs jam packed with plastic bags,” Trudeau asked, not seeking an answer.The main message: the government will ban “harmful” single-use plastics as early as 2021.Be they shopping bags, straws or stir sticks, Trudeau said the government would be following the science and launching public consultations.He also revealed plans to make companies that manufacture or sell plastic products take responsibility for recycling their plastic waste.An extended producer responsibility program is to be established with the federal government working alongside industry and the provinces.“Whether we’re talking about plastic bottles or cellphones, it will be up to businesses to take responsibility for the plastics they’re manufacturing and putting out into the world,” Trudeau said.There’s nothing like a bit of sunny optimism on an early summer’s day.
July
“My turn is over.” That’s Canopy Growth Corp.CEO Bruce Linton announcing that the board had decided to bid him farewell.Having improbably built an industry-defining cannabis company in the former Hershey chocolate factory in Smiths Falls, Linton had equally improbably taken the company public.Today we know Canopy through its Tweed and Tokyo Smoke banner products, soon to extend into such edibles as chocolate, such as that made in the facility at One Hershey Drive.Linton’s exit can be linked to the corporatization of the company, thanks to the $5-billion investment from Constellation Brands which stacked the Canopy board as part of the deal.Interviewed by Yahoo! Finance a week after his ouster, Linton braided his thoughts about Canopy’s search for a new CEO with his views on driven-by-the-markets corporate thinking.“If I was interviewing for it I would be probably one of the weakest candidates they’d have because that’s not my skill set, to manage to an EPS model and tweak it by pennies.”
August
WeWork, the non-tech office leasing company, submitted its initial go-public filings with U.S.
securities regulators under a new corporate moniker, The We Company.There was some highfalutin’ language in there, including the company’s mission “to elevate the world’s consciousness.” Forbes viewed the prospectus less charitably, characterizing it as “the most ridiculous IPO of 2019.” The $47-billion (U.S.) valuation was cause for deep digging into the leadership bona fides of CEO Adam Neumann, growth prospects for a company that had lost $1.9 billion (U.S.) in 2018 and fears of what would happen when the next recession hits.Forbes’s take: “WeWork has copied an old business model, i.e.office leasing, slapped some tech lingo on it, and suckered venture capital investors into valuing the firm at more than 10x its nearest competitor.” WeWork would pull its securities filing weeks later.
September
“I assure you we will go back to school the moment you start listening to the science and give us a future.” From mobilizing students to mobilizing the world, climate activist Greta Thunberg’s global day of action drew hundreds of thousands, if not millions of marchers.Amazon Employees for Climate Justice walked off the job.
Ben & Jerry’s stopped ice cream production for a day in Vermont.Patagonia shuttered stores.“We face a dangerously hot and fast-changing climate that is exacerbating natural disasters, causing food and water shortages, and speeding us toward the biggest economic catastrophe in history,” wrote Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario.“The plain truth is that capitalism needs to evolve if humanity is going to survive.”
Appearing before the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York, the diminutive Thunberg showed business and political leaders the true power of statesmanship.“We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth.
How dare you.”
October
“I get that I’m not the ideal messenger for this right now.” Appearing before the U.S.House Financial Services Committee, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made his pitch for the not-yet-launched Libra cryptocurrency, in which Facebook is taking a lead hand.Framing it as a global payment system that would democratize financial services for the billion people around the world who do not have access to a bank account, Zuckerberg failed to make an ally in Rep.
Maxine Waters, a Democrat from California.“Perhaps you believe that you’re above the law, and it appears that you are aggressively increasing the size of your company, and are willing to step on or over anyone, including your competitors, women, people of colour, your own users, and even our democracy to get what you want,” Waters said in her opening remarks.
“In fact, you have opened up a serious discussion about whether Facebook should be broken up.” Libra’s initial hoped-for launch date of early 2020 started to appear less certain by the day.
November
Elon Musk unveils the “it doesn’t look like anything else” Cybertruck.The electric pickup with the cold-rolled stainless steel exoskeleton was driven onto the stage at the Tesla Design Studio in Hawthorne, Calif., by chief designer Franz von Holzhausen, evoking, at least in styling, comparisons to fated automaker John DeLorean, who also had a thing for stainless steel.
At Musk’s prodding, von Holzhausen took a sledgehammer to the driver’s side door panel, failing to make a dent.When von Holzhausen heaved a steel ball at the Tesla armour glass windows however, well, the result was shattering.Musk’s response? “Oh my f — ing God.Well maybe that was a little too hard.”
The innovator’s surprise was genuine, given that this little trick had already been tested pre-unveil with no damage to the glass.
No matter: orders for the Cybertruck with the adaptive ride height (that’s cool) blew past a quarter million within the week.And the video of a tug-of-war between the Cybertruck and Ford’s F-150 was fun: the Cybertruck won, and it was being driven uphill.The electric pickup battle has been officially launched.
December
“The standard structure of public ownership may jeopardize the independence and focused objectivity that have been most important in Google’s past success and that we consider most fundamental for its future.” Circle back to 2004 for Sergey Brin and Larry Page’s justification for a dual-class share structure for its about-to-go-public Google Inc.“New investors will fully share in Google’s long term economic future but will have little ability to influence its strategic decisions through their voting rights,” the founders wrote in their first letter to shareholders.In addition to not being evil and making the world a better place, the leaders pledged to keep all the power to themselves.
Fifteen years later, having grown Google/Alphabet into a $136.8-billion (U.S.) colossus, the leaders announced it was time to take off the training wheels and formalize Sundar Pichai’s leadership as CEO.“We believe it’s time to assume the role of proud parents — offering advice and love, but not daily nagging!” the letter-writing founders exclaimed.And yet, their voting control remains undiminished, spurring ace tech commentator Kara Swisher to opine: “This dual stock thing needs to be sunsetted at some point.” Top Stories What a year! Jennifer Wells looks back at the zany, shocking and important business stories that made 2019 a year to remember Opinion.