The president and CEO of Canadian Pacific Railway, Fred Green, and five other board members announced their resignation from the company early Thursday morning.
CP Rail said the chairman, John E. Cleghorn and five other directors would not stand for re-election, clearning the way for activist investor, William C. Ackman,’s seven nominees to join its 16-member board.
Ackman has been in a proxy battle for control of the company.
Most shareholders indicate that they would back Ackman’s bid for the board. He currently owns 14.2 per cent of CP Rail through his holding company, Pershing Square Capital Management.
Green has been under pressure from Ackman over the past year.
He has wanted to replace Green with E. Hunter Harrison, who used to run the Canadian National Railway.
According to a new survey done by Bank of Montreal Financial Group, Canadian homeowners plan to carry their mortgage into their retirement years.
The survey, conducted by Leger Marketing, found that over half of Canadians expect to carry a mortgage into their retirement years, while 52 per cent of homeowners feel their debt load or mortgages is hindering their ability to plan or save for retirement.
While saving for retirement and paying off a mortgage can often become competing priorities, some experts recommend finding a balance between both but placing extra focus on paying off a mortgage.
However, Phil Soper, chief executive of Royal LePage Real Estate Services, said times have changed.
He believes Canadians can handle the burden, because they are living longer, working longer, and making real estate plans longer then before.
Another trend, according to Soper, is people are moving into more expensive, upscale homes after retirement.
“Traditionally people paid off their mortgage and people lived in their home until it was time to downsize,” he said.
The attitude of homeowners could also reflect the longer amortization the mortgage industry saw before the government cracked down on the rules.
Mortgage amortization ballooned to 40 years before Ottawa twice lowered the limit, which now stand at 30 years.
Many are asking for it to be reduced back to 25 years.
Tino Di Vito, head of the BMO Retirement Institute said the issue is how it’s affecting retirement with half of Canadian homeowners saying their debt load was hindering their ability to plan and save.
She says half of Canadian homeowners age 50-59 still have mortgage debt based on Statistics Canada information.
By 60-69, 25 per cent of those people will still have a mortgage.
Real estate prices in Canada are at all-time high. The Canadian Real Estate Association said this week the average price reached $372,608 in April.
Pinterest, a social bookmarking site, got a little richer today. According to an announcement they just raised an additional $100-mln in a funding round lead by Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten.
The funding will allow Pinterest to improve and expand its community globally. The new round of financing values Pinterest – one of Silicon Valley’s fastest growing startups – at $1.5-bln, up sharply from $200-mln late last year, Wall Street Journal said.
Pinterest, an online scrapbook where users can “pin” images and follow others, has grown from less than one million users in May 2011 to about 20 million in April. It is the 16th most-visited site in the U.S.
Tech-startup values have been rising dramatically in recent months, another example being Facebook’s recent $1 bln purchase of photo-sharing application, Instagram.
Rakuten ranks among the top 10 internet companies in the world. It has invested in Buy.com, Kobo, and others companies. It plans to use it’s foothold in Pinterest to expand the site in Japan and connect it to its existing 17 overseas markets.
______
Nicole Siena is an intern for the Toronto Standard. Follow her on Twitter at @nicolesiena
For more, follow us on Twitter at @TorontoStandard and subscribe to our newsletter
