Stock news: Cogeco takes U.S. telecom hit as Electrovaya rallies
Cogeco reports a steep quarterly loss tied to its U.S. business, while Electrovaya jumps on an Amazon agreement and Loblaw expands its EQB stake.
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Cogeco reports a steep quarterly loss tied to its U.S. business, while Electrovaya jumps on an Amazon agreement and Loblaw expands its EQB stake.
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Numbers for its third quarter:
Competitive intensity south of the border weighed on Cogeco Inc.’s earnings during its latest quarter despite what the company described as encouraging results for the Canadian side of its business. The Montreal-based telecommunications company reported a loss of $1.8 billion during the third quarter, compared with a profit of $74 million during the same period a year earlier.
Chief executive Frédéric Perron says the U.S. cable sector is “going through significant turbulence.”
In June, Cogeco and its cable and internet subsidiary Cogeco Communications Inc. announced expectations to take an impairment charge of about $1.7 billion related to its U.S. telecom segment.
Cogeco’s U.S. telecom revenue decreased by 10% during the quarter, which it attributed to a lower subscriber base compared with the previous year, a larger proportion of customers subscribing to internet-only services, as well as a competitive pricing environment.
The company offers wireless service under its Breezeline Mobile brand to customers in 13 U.S. states.
Numbers for its first quarter:
Shares of lithium-ion battery company Electrovaya Inc. spiked nearly 50% after it announced a deal with Amazon that could see the tech giant take a large stake in the company. Electrovaya says the deal will help support the growth of its battery technology in material handling operations with potential expansion into robotics and energy storage.
Under the agreement, Amazon will receive warrants to buy up to 13,880,345 common shares of Electrovaya. The warrants become fully vested once Amazon buys a total of US$280 million in products from Electrovaya, with a portion vesting immediately.
As of March 31, the company had 49,507,480 shares outstanding and 4,013,901 options outstanding. If Amazon exercises all of the warrants to buy Electrovaya shares it would hold a nearly 21 per cent stake in the company, based on the latest share count.
Shares in the company were up C$5.36, or about 48%, at C$16.42 in trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Numbers for its third quarter:
Blue Ant Media Corp. says it lost $17.5 million in its latest quarter as its revenue more than doubled compared with a year ago, helped by its acquisition of Thunderbird Entertainment.
The streaming and production company says the loss amounted to 64 cents per diluted share for the quarter ending May 31 as it took a $33.1-million non-cash impairment charge related to broadcast licences in the company’s Canadian media segment.
The result compared with a loss of $11.2 million, or 73 cents per diluted share in the same quarter last year.
Revenue for the quarter totalled $125.6 million, up from $56 million a year ago, before the company bought Thunderbird Entertainment. Blue Ant chief executive Michael MacMillan says the results provide a clear picture of the company’s expanded scale, output and earnings power.
Blue Ant has a portfolio of free streaming and pay TV channels as well as the subscription streaming service MagellanTV.
Loblaw Cos. Ltd. has announced it has entered into an automatic share purchase plan to acquire common shares of EQB Inc. Under the share purchase plan, Loblaw’s broker may acquire up to a maximum number of EQB common shares that, when combined with shares already purchased, equates to the lesser of 10.6 million shares or 24.9% of the issued and outstanding EQB shares.
Loblaw says outside of the share purchase plan period, additional shares may be purchased at its discretion.
Earlier this month, EQB announced it had completed its acquisition of PC Financial, while adding two Loblaw nominees to its board.
In the coming months, EQB and Loblaw will begin to transition PC Bank clients to the EQB Bank platform.
EQB said it would acquire PC Financial in December and that it would pay $800 million in shares and cash, while Loblaw would take about a 16% stake in the bank and EQ would become the exclusive financial partner of the PC Optimum loyalty program.
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