Welcome to The Globe and Mail’s business and investing news quiz. Join us each week to test your knowledge of the stories making the headlines. Our business reporters come up with the questions, and you can show us what you know.
This week: The American owner of Rexall pharmacy sold the pharmacy chain to Canadian private equity firm Birch Hill Equity Partners. Texas-based McKesson Corp. announced the deal on Thursday. The sale includes 385 brick-and-mortar pharmacies as well as the Well.ca e-commerce site. The price tag was not disclosed. As it turned out, Thursday was a big deal for local retail outlets. On the same day, convenience stores across Ontario started selling beer, wine, cider and ready-to-drink cocktails. About 2,000 corner stores have ordered alcohol from the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, the exclusive wholesaler to corner stores in the province.
a. Canadian canola. Canada exported $5-billion of canola to China last year. The seeds are used for food and biofuel.
d. Royal Bank of Canada chief executive Dave McKay. Hmmm. Bank critics have accused the Big Five of being a ruthless oligopoly for years, but it was Mr. McKay who applied the term in rather confusing fashion this week. His point seemed to be that the big banks compete fiercely against one another. But that’s not really an oligopoly, is it? Oh, well. Maybe the point here is that oligopolists use words the way oligopolists want.
b. The risk that inflation may fall too far. After struggling to bring down runaway inflation, the bank is now worried about the opposite danger – the possibility that inflation may fall too far, too fast, and undershoot its target.
c. How ticket sales are being handled. The British competition watchdog said this week it is investigating how “dynamic pricing” sent prices for Oasis tickets soaring and disappointed fans who had waited in online queues for hours. Dynamic pricing is a polite term for bumping up prices when demand runs higher than expected – what some people might call gouging. It is legal, but British authorities insist that companies that use dynamic pricing must be transparent about how prices are set and not mislead consumers.
c. Nvidia has been red-hot over the past few years, but it has lost ground over the past couple of weeks as investors question whether the chip maker can live up to the exuberant growth projections embedded in its stock price. The stock fell nearly 10 per cent on Tuesday.
a. Nordstrom. Members of the Nordstom family have teamed up with a Mexican retailer and are offering US$3.76-billion to take the century-old department store private.
d. The world’s fourth-biggest retailer. The merged company would rank just behind Walmart, Amazon and Costco, according to data from the National Retail Association. It would have about US$150-billion in annual revenue and more than 100,000 stores.
b. Volvo Cars. Volvo said its new goal is for 90 to 100 per cent of the cars it sells in 2030 to be either fully electric or plug-in hybrids.
b. Japanese company. It’s difficult to see any economic reasons for blocking Nippon Steel’s takeover of PIttsburgh-based U.S. Steel, but there are political reasons. Democrats may win votes in electorally crucial Pennsylvania by blocking the foreign takeover of a local icon.
a. Lower numbers of foreign students. Landlords in many university cities say rents are falling – a welcome development for tenants and for inflation-watchers. The largest factor behind the rent decreases appears to be the federal government’s long-awaited decision to curtail the number of foreign student permits. A massive influx of foreign students had overwhelmed rental markets in several cities and led to a public outcry.
c. By encouraging a four-day work week. Japanese authorities hope a more flexible approach to work might lure more people into the work force. Unfortunately, the notion of working less is proving a tough sell in a country that prides itself on long hours and a ferocious work ethic.
d. Between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. The province said by Tuesday it had awarded licences to sell alcohol to 4,200 convenience stores. Several health organizations have expressed concern about the move to expand alcohol sales.