Sign up for the Executive Summary email briefing to get the news delivered straight to your inbox first thing in the morning.
Twitter’s stock is retreating on its second trading day after the popular short messaging service saw a huge first-day pop in what turned out to be a smooth public debut. Such volatile trading is common for freshly public stocks as investors gauge supply and demand with limited insight into how well the companies will do on the long run. Twitter’s stock is down 4.2% to US$43 in late morning trading despite an uptick in the broader market. The stock had surged on Thursday, its first day trading, closing 73% higher than the US$26 IPO price that was set on Wednesday night. Like Google, Amazon and Facebook before it, Twitter may be poised to become an Internet utility, RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney told clients in a research note. “Twitter is where events, information, ideas, & fads get reported, purported, distributed, and exploited,” he said. Analysts’ 12-month price targets on Twitter’s stock range from US$29 to US$54, reports the Financial Post‘s Matt Braga. But not all analysts were quite as happy with Twitter’s first day gains, which soared so high that one analyst quickly downgraded the social network’s hours-old stock. “With a price that pushes into the high 30s and beyond, Twitter is simply too expensive,” Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser said in a research note, pointing out the company’s value was almost the same as larger media giants such as Discovery Communications and CBS.
Related: How do you get the most out of post-IPO Twitter? Unfollow everyone – Financial Post
Video: Hidden Nightmares Lurk in Apple’s Supply Chain Bloomberg Businessweek’s Cam Simpson explores how Apple’s global supply chain is built on poverty-level workers whose jobs depend on fees paid to recruiters
Joslyn oilsands project gets supersized France’s Total SA is upsizing its flagship Joslyn oil sands mine in northern Alberta by at least 50% in a bid to spread costs thin over larger volumes, the chief executive officer of its Canadian arm told the Financial Post on Thursday. André Goffart said the company would seek an amendment to existing project approvals by year-end to boost the scope of the proposed $8-billion mine, increasing planned output to between 150,000 and 160,000 barrels a day from an original design capacity of 100,000 barrels. Total is grappling with how to wring better performance out of Joslyn as the company pushes forward with Fort Hills, a $13.5-billion joint venture with Suncor Energy Inc. and Teck Resources Ltd. that stands to raise output in northern Alberta by 180,000 barrels a day starting in late 2017. A decision to go ahead with Joslyn won’t come before 2015 at the earliest, although Mr. Goffart acknowledged first oil could slip beyond a target of 2020. “It’s becoming a bit tight now,” he said in an interview at the company’s Calgary headquarters. “There is a debate whether or not Fort Hills and Joslyn can be developed in parallel. That’s a real concern in Alberta because mine projects are all big projects.”
Related: Total presses Suncor on Fort Hills decision – Financial Post
Can $85M save BlackBerry? BlackBerry Ltd. shareholders must be hoping they get what the company is paying for the struggling smartphone maker’s new interim chief executive and executive chair. As the Financial Post‘s Matthew Braga reports, new interim CEO John Chen is worth a lot to Blackberry – enough to warrant up to US$3-million in yearly salary, and a signing bonus based on Thursday’s share price worth US$85-million in stock. Chen officially joined the company on Nov. 4 as part of a larger deal with Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd that would make BlackBerry the recipient of a US$1-billion cash injection, abandoning a previous bid that would have taken the company private for US$4.7-billion, or US$9 per share. Instead, Fairfax is working with other investors to purchase convertible debentures, and in the process, announced former CEO Thorsten Heins would be stepping down. The latest details on the Waterloo, Ont.-based company’s transition were found in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission made public on Thursday, where it was also revealed that Fairfax has found partners for its funding deal. Mackenzie Financial Corp., Canso Investment Counsel Ltd., Markel Corp., Brookfield Asset Management Inc., and Qatar Holding LLC. are the other purchasers so far onboard.
Related: If John Chen revives BlackBerry Ltd, ‘turnaround expert’ title really is his to claim – Financial Post
Rates are going up: Flaherty Interest rates are going to go up over the long term regardless of what central banks do at the moment, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Thursday after the European Central Bank unexpectedly trimmed rates. The bank cut rates to a record low earlier in the day and said it would prime banks with liquidity into 2015 to prevent the eurozone’s recovery from stalling. Flaherty told reporters in Toronto that people “should anticipate over the long term, interest rates will go up regardless of what central banks do now,” adding that the more recent period of very low interest rates “is an anomaly.” Flaherty and the Bank of Canada, which has kept interest rates at a near-record low since September 2010, have repeatedly told Canadians to be careful when taking on debt since borrowing costs will eventually start to rise. Flaherty also said the government would intervene in the Canadian housing market only in the event of bubble-like indicators, something he did not see right now. Canada’s housing market, which avoided the crash seen in the United States, boomed coming out of the recession after the central bank cut its main interest rate to a record low.
Related: European Central Bank cuts rates to new low after deflation scare – Reuters
BCE gaining traction with Fibe The prospect of shuffling a sports-loving husband and his buddies off to the garage to watch the game seems to be winning customers over to BCE Inc.’s Fibe TV, which posted its best quarterly numbers yet, the company said Thursday. As the Financial Post‘s Christine Dobby reports, the Montreal-based telecommunications and media company has been making steady inroads against its cable competitors since expanding its television offering beyond its national satellite business and launching an Internet Protocol TV service (known in the industry as IPTV) in September 2010 in Quebec and Ontario. And it added the option of wireless receivers for set-top boxes in late May to give customers the freedom to place TVs anywhere with an electrical outlet without being tied to a television jack or running new wires. It has been marketing the feature heavily with commercials touting the convenience of easily relegating said sports-lover to a remote part of the home for example. “The Fibe TV product with the new wireless set top box has clearly attracted a number of customers and given us some differentiation in the market,” he told analysts during a conference call to discuss BCE’s quarterly earnings.
Related: BCE sells five radio stations to Newcap for $112-million – Financial Post
Tim’s focused on home turf Tim Hortons’ new chief executive is focused on making business improvements on the coffee and baked goods chain’s home turf before he decides to test out the brand in new far-flung international locations, reports the Financial Post‘s Hollie Shaw. Marc Caira, who took over as CEO of Canada’s largest quick-serve restaurant chain in July, said the company is “very happy” with its expansion into the Middle East, where it has opened 33 locations with a local partner. But its primary strategy for now is “defending and growing” its core businesses in Canada and the U.S., where it has more than 4,300 locations and has been facing stiffer than ever competition from McDonald’s refurbished coffee business.“As I commit to this role I have tried to set priorities,” Mr. Caira told analysts Thursday on a conference call to discuss third-quarter results. “You have got to put your resources where they are required and where you will get the quickest return.” The company’s net income in the period ended Sept. 29 rose to $113.9-million, or 75¢ per share, in the third quarter ended Sept. 29 from $105.7-million, (68¢) in the quarter a year earlier.
Related: Tim Hortons profit perks up on higher U.S. same-store sales – Financial Post
Tesla stock sinks again Remember Audi’s woes about purported self-acceleration back in the ’80s? Not even close, but Tesla Motors Inc., the electric-car maker led by Elon Musk, fell to its lowest price in more than two months Thursday after another Model S sedan fire Wednesday in Tennessee, the third in five weeks involving the model. The shares was down 6.26% at US$141.71 at 2:10 a.m New York time after declining as much as 7.1% to US$140.50, the lowest intraday price since Aug. 15. Tesla plunged 22% from Sept. 30, when it closed at a record US$193.37, through Wednesday. A Tesla Model S electric car caught fire this week after hitting road debris on a Tennessee freeway, the third fire in a Model S in the past five weeks. The blaze on Wednesday afternoon near Smyrna, Tenn., engulfed the front of the car. A spokeswoman for the Tennessee Highway Patrol says the Model S ran over a tow hitch, which hit the undercarriage of the car, causing an electrical fire.
Related: Tesla Model S caught fire after driver crashed into concrete wall at high speed – Bloomberg
Inside Leonard Asper’s fight to win back his family’s TV empire Financial Post‘s Chief Business Correspondent Theresa Tedesco takes an exclusive look at how Leonard Asper fought to keep Canwest in family hands: Here, in the final part of the three-part series, she delves into how Leonard made his play to protect the company’s newspaper division.
Related: Leonard Asper on why he gave his journals to Financial Post
Thanks for reading. We update this roundup throughout the work day, so please check back again for the latest news. Sign up for our Executive Summary email briefing to get the news delivered straight to your inbox. You can also follow on Twitter and Facebook.