HBC real estate IPO unlikely any time soon: Sonshine

HBC real estate IPO unlikely any time soon: Sonshine

Retailer Hudson’s Bay Co is unlikely to take its vast real estate holdings public any time soon, said the head of RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust (REI.UN-T) a partner in a venture that holds some of those assets. HBC is under pressure from activist investor Jonathan Litt, who disclosed a 4.3 per cent stake in the company in June, to get cash from its real estate assets or take action to boost income from them.

Financial Post

Sears Canada leases of interest to Riocan, H&R: Video

RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust, Canada’s largest retail landlord, and a unit of H&R Real Estate Investment Trust, the country’s biggest diversified REIT, are among potential bidders for Sears Canada assets, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

Bloomberg – Calgary Herald

Kitchener’s Catalyst137 hardware tech hub world’s largest

Catalyst137, a light industrial and office building in downtown Kitchener, Ont., will be the world’s largest hardware technology hub when it opens this fall. “We used the term Catalyst because we’re catalyzing the hardware aspect of our local ecosystem,” said Frank Voisin, the president of real estate investment firm Voisin Capital, who co-founded Catalyst137 with Miovision CEO Kurtis McBride.

Property Biz Canada – Property Biz Canada – Property Biz Canada – Property Biz Canada

How e-commerce is driving a real estate revolution

On the third storey of Amazon’s towering warehouse in Brampton, Ont., 350-pound robots zip across concrete floors, picking up tall shelves of books, clothing or electronics and racing off to deliver them to human sorters. A 10-kilometre web of conveyor belts ferries thousands of orders from one workstation to the next, while robotic arms stamp labels onto the boxes and workers scan and package items.

Globe and Mail

Former CEO of Hudson’s Bay Co. joins Smooth Commerce

Smooth Commerce, a fully integrated mobile payment and marketing platform for retailers, is thrilled to welcome Bonnie Brooks to its Advisory Group. The former President & CEO of Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), Ms. Brooks brings to Smooth Commerce over 30 years of global leadership experience in retail and marketing.

Canada Newswire

Uncertainty about retailers affecting U.S. mall deal activity

Growing concern about the long-term prospects for in-store retail is creating a slowdown in the sale of shopping centres. Retail property sales in the second quarter of 2017 fell 45.9 per cent year-over-year and first-half sales are 26 per cent below 2016, according to preliminary data from Real Capital Analytics.

CP Executive

Mega Parc makeover in Quebec City shopping centre

Canada’s second-largest indoor amusement park in a shopping mall is getting a $52-million makeover. Built in 1988, the Mega Parc in Quebec City’s Les Galeries de la Capitale needs an update, says Jean Pelletier, manager of the Mega Parc. It’s second in size in Canada to the West Edmonton Mall and the largest mall amusement park in Eastern Canada.

Property Biz Canada – Property Biz Canada

Couche-Tard wows with first-time US$2.5 billion debt offering

At US$2.5 billion, the three-part offering by Quebec-based Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. (ATD.B-T, ATD.A-T) that was priced this week, is very significant. The company, which has a total network of almost 14,000 stores around the world, met hundreds of U.S. fixed-income investors and when it was all over secured financing on very attractive terms.

Financial Post

FedEx Office stores closing in Canada, 214 workers to lose jobs

The shipping giant will close 24 stores, a manufacturing plant in Markham, Ont., and its head office in Toronto, but the closures will not affect its shipping business here. Eighteen of the stores are in Ontario, five in B.C. and one in Nova Scotia. The closings are to begin in August.

Financial Post – CBC

B.C. ski resort deals highlight lofty market terrain

The flurry of recent sales for B.C. ski resorts is not necessarily a sign that there are more transactions to come, according to industry insiders. Grouse Mountain Resort’s July 18 sale to CM (Canada) Asset Management Co. Ltd. followed the sale of Cypress Mountain as part of a US$374.5 million package deal earlier this year and Whistler Blackcomb Holdings Inc.’s $1.4 billion sale to Vail Resorts Inc..

BIV.com

Absorption up, vacancies down in Montreal’s industrial market

Absorption of industrial real estate in Montreal has reached its highest level in more than a decade, according to Luciano D’Iorio, the managing director for Quebec at Cushman & Wakefield. Almost 1.8 million square feet of industrial property in Montreal was absorbed during the second quarter of 2017,  the highest absorption rate since 2006.

Montreal Gazette

Montreal IGA grows its own vegetables on store roof

Tim Murphy, a project manager and urban gardener for The Green Line: Green Roof, a Montreal-based company that installs green roofs, bends down and pulls a healthy-looking bulb of garlic out of the ground. It’s in a large, well-maintained garden that Murphy tends on the roof of a grocery store.

Montreal Gazette

Victoria’s Ship Point revitalization a case of unpaving paradise

Like the Joni Mitchell song in reverse, the City of Victoria hopes to replace a parking lot at Ship Point with a bit of paradise as it revitalizes. Ship Point — the parking lot below Wharf Street at Fort Street — has for years been derided for providing parked cars with some of the best views in the city.

Vancouver Sun

IMCO begins management of $60B in assets

Today the Investment Management Corporation of Ontario (IMCO) began to manage the assets of its first two clients, the Workplace Safety Insurance Board (WSIB) and the Ontario Pension Board (OPB).  Funds under management have a value of approximately $60B and are invested across a broad range of asset classes, including public equities, public debt, private equity, real estate, and infrastructure.

Canada Newswire

At 92, B.C. billionaire Joseph Segal is still hard at work

B.C. billionaire Joseph Segal knows the importance of being nimble in business, whether you’re young or, in his case, an energetic 92 years old. “I know it doesn’t go on forever,” the real estate developer said during a wide-ranging interview that covered topics such as early retirement, a prized chandelier, a $63-million mansion, the perils of retailing and the need for philanthropy.

Globe and Mail

Market Trends and Research

The case for another Bank of Canada rate hike in October grows

Canadian retail sales posted their third healthy increase in a row in May, a sign of strength that analysts said boosts the case for another rate hike this year despite data showing persistently weak inflation. Sales rose by 0.6 per cent from April to hit a record $48.91 billion, Statistics Canada said on Friday.

Financial Post

Will medical office continue to support rich deals?

According to a CoStar Group analysis of nearly 23,000 MOB sale transactions from 2008 to present, as foreign investors, REITs and other institutional buyers rush to scoop up medical office building (MOB) space the growing pool of buyers competing for a limited number of available properties is driving capitalization rates lower.

CoStar Group

B.C. retail-sales growth tops among provinces

B.C. retailers had a banner May, enjoying stronger sales growth than counterparts in all other Canadian provinces. The province’s brisk retail sales in May were 2.6 per cent more than in April and 9.9 per cent more than in May 2016, according to Statistics Canada data released July 21.

BIV.com

Bigger ships, more traffic for Port of Halifax

Container traffic at the Port of Halifax is booming due to the arrival of new shipping lines, bigger vessels, and increasing co-ordination between the local players in the industry. Measured in terms of formerly-standard, 20-foot-long containers called TEUs, container traffic jumped 19 per cent, to 143,850 TEUs, in the second quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2016.

The Chronicle Herald

REIT Financial Reports

Dream Global REIT sets pricing of inaugural European debt offering

Dream Global REIT (DRG.UN-T) announced that it has priced its previously disclosed inaugural European offering of EUR375 million ($544.3 million) aggregate principal amount of senior unsecured notes. The notes will bear interest at a rate of 1.375 per cent per annum (representing the coupon rate of interest) and will mature on December 21, 2021.

Marketwired

Mainstreet Equity Corp. releases its Q3 2017 results

Mainstreet Equity Corp., MEQ-T

Canada Newswire

Choice Properties REIT reports solid results for Q2 2017

Choice Properties REIT, CHP.UN-T

Canada Newswire

Retail

Sears Canada faces boycott over treatment of ex-employees

Sears Canada is facing a social media campaign calling for a boycott after the company said it planned on paying millions in bonuses to keep executives on board during restructuring, despite not offering severance to laid-off workers. The retailer’s Facebook page has been flooded with comments from people vowing not to shop at Sears, and the hashtag #BoycottSearsCanada has been gaining traction on Twitter.

Toronto Star – CBC

New Development

P3 collaboration helps shape Barrie’s downtown development

The Downtown Barrie Business Association (BIA) is spearheading a project that will encompass enhancements to Barrie, Ont.’s existing Memorial Square as well as the creation of a new public venue to be known as Meridian Place. The development will function as a large public gathering and outdoor event space in the heart of the city as well as a conduit to its waterfront.

Daily Commercial News

Infrastructure

Stuart Waugh on Canada’s Infrastructure Bank: Video

Stuart Waugh, managing partner of the US$9.5B private investment firm Northleaf Capital Partners, joins Bloomberg TV Canada’s Lily Jamali to discuss what opportunities Canada’s Infrastructure Bank could present to investors.

Bloomberg

Potentially revolutionary Hyperloop has to get off the ground first

Imagine travelling from Vancouver to Toronto — a distance of almost 4,400 kilometres — in less than three hours. Replace Canadian cities with communities across the U.S., and you’ve got Elon Musk’s vision for the hyperloop, a vacuum tube that would be able to carry pods roughly the size of a train carriage at speeds close to the speed of sound.

CBC

Human Resources

Four Toronto builders impact on future generations

Anne Smythe, a Toronto artist, didn’t always appreciate her surname.  Her grandfather Conn Smythe fought in both world wars before taking up ownership of the Maple Leafs. He’s the namesake of the Stanley Cup’s top playoff performer trophy, in the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame and known for his philanthropy.

Toronto Star

Technology

Canadian companies are global leaders of the digital workplace

Traditionally, the work day was divided into three parts: commute to the office, work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., commute home. Today, there is no denying that the workday looks much different. With the ability to increase productivity, avoid traffic, reduce travel expenses and maintain a healthy work-life balance, many Canadians are choosing remote work.

Financial Post

Other

	RENX has surpassed 10,035 Twitter followers
	Recent follower Wesgroup Properties is a Vancouver-based, family-owned real estate company that specializes in the development of sustainable, mixed-use spaces.
	Follow RENXca, the most comprehensive news feed on Twitter for Canadian real estate professionals.