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UBS Group is buying troubled rival Credit Suisse Group in an all-share deal worth US$3.25-billion, creating a global wealth manager with US$5-trillion of invested assets and ending a century and a half of independence for what was once one of the world’s mightiest investment banks and traders.
The fast-track takeover, announced Sunday evening, reflected the desperation of governments and regulators for an agreement before the markets opened on Monday for fear that Credit Suisse’s alarmingly fast deterioration could trigger a crushing selloff, Eric Reguly reports.
In a further global response of a kind not seen since the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, five major central banks – the Bank of Canada, U.S. Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of Japan and Swiss National Bank – announced a co-ordinated action to enhance market liquidity. Starting Monday, the central banks will move from weekly to daily auctions of U.S. dollars through standing swap line arrangements until the end of April.
- Credit Suisse’s recent history is filled with controversy
- Opinion: No, the failure of three U.S. banks and a crisis at Credit Suisse is not 2008 again
MORITZ HAGER/Reuters
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A Hamilton nursing home lost power for more than 13 hours. Internal documents show it wasn’t an isolated incident
The call bells used to summon staff for help stopped working the instant the nursing home lost power during a major winter storm last Dec. 23. So did the electric ceiling lifts that people rely on to get into their wheelchairs. One person who requires a feeding pump couldn’t eat or drink.
Wind gusts of up to 110 kilometres an hour, snow and flash freezing knocked out power for nearly 60,000 people in the southwestern Ontario city of Hamilton, including those living and working in the Blackadar Continuing Care Centre. They went without essential services for 13½ hours, from 5 p.m. until 6:30 a.m. the next day when power was eventually restored.
Internal Blackadar e-mails, government inspection reports and complaints obtained by The Globe and Mail, including one that detailed the recent outage, show that this blackout wasn’t an isolated incident, report Karen Howlett and Kelly Grant. Blackadar has repeatedly contravened the province’s long-term care legislation with impunity, a Globe investigation has found.
Jimmy Carter, Chalk River and the dawn of Canada’s nuclear age
In the spring of 1953, workers dragged a large aluminum cylinder to the clearing on the road to Canadian Nuclear Laboratories in Chalk River, Ont., and raised an earthen mound over it to screen its radioactive emission. The cylinder was the damaged heart of what was then Canada’s groundbreaking National Research Experimental reactor.
The burial was part of a massive cleanup effort and a push to restore a device that was operating at the frontiers of a new science.
Among those who pitched in was James Earl Carter, a 28-year-old naval officer who later would become president of the United States, reports Ivan Semeniuk. With Carter’s announcement last month that he has entered hospice care, the story of the reactor and the mishap that brought him to Canada 70 years ago has recaptured public attention.
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Also on our radar
Canada’s child-soldier initiative hits headwind in Congo: Allegations from United Nations investigators that Rwandan-backed rebels, the M23 militia, are recruiting child combatants in eastern Congo could become an embarrassment for Ottawa, which has chosen Rwanda as a key hub for its campaign.
Families of those missing after Old Montreal fire await news: Crews began dismantling a heritage building destroyed in a raging fire last week; police say one body has been discovered in the rubble and six people remain missing.
Justice Russell Brown’s absence will be felt: The Supreme Court is set to hear Alberta’s challenge to a federal veto power over provincial natural-resource projects, but Brown, the court’s strongest voice for provincial rights, will be sitting this case out because of a disciplinary matter.
Ottawa makes little progress enacting cybersecurity recommendations: More than 18 months after parliamentarians identified that Crown corporations were at risk of inadvertently acting as gateways into the government’s well-protected networks, the number of organizations subject to Treasury Board’s cyberdefence policies hasn’t budged.
Morning markets
Markets struggle as uncertainty lingers: European share markets opened sharply lower and government bonds and gold rallied in a rush for safety on Monday as the emergency weekend rescue of banking heavyweight Credit Suisse left the financial system facing widespread uncertainty. Around 5:30 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 was down 0.79 per cent. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 lost 0.44 per cent and 0.35 per cent, respectively. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei closed down 1.42 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 2.65 per cent. New York futures were down. The Canadian dollar was little changed at 72.86 US cents.
What everyone’s talking about
Fighting or fleeing is no answer
“While it makes sense for people to be on guard and aware of their surroundings in a public setting, we don’t really want to go down a road in which commuters need to be soldiers, ready to fend off attacks with their hands and feet.” - Marcus Gee
James Reimer is the bad guy so that the NHL can be on every side
“Were I Reimer and felt the need to make a statement here, I’d have gone shorter – ‘I’m a hockey player, not a candidate for political office. My beliefs are my business.’ But Reimer’s statement succeeded in doing one thing – taking the heat off his bosses. He’s the bad guy so that the people who run hockey can be the all-things-to-all-people guys. That is what the NHL’s whack-a-mole approach to Pride events has become – a strange marketing game designed to let the league have it every which way.” - Cathal Kelly
Today’s editorial cartoon
David Parkins/The Globe and Mail
Living better
Remember taking photos with a film camera? It’s making a comeback
It takes more time, money and a level of skill to shoot analog, but there’s one thing film cameras have over their digital successors: the element of surprise. “It’s really the delayed gratification. Waiting a week and then coming back to see how did they turn out. People come to pick up their film and they’re excited,” says Michael Willems, a photography teacher who also runs a film developing studio in Ottawa.
Moment in time: A tasty tradition
Children roll up and taste maple taffy at Sucrerie de la Montagne, a sugar shack or cabane a sucre, in Rigaud, Que., March 23, 2022.Christinne Muschi/The Globe and Mail
For more than 100 years, photographers and photo editors working for The Globe and Mail have preserved an extraordinary collection of news photography. Every Monday, The Globe features one of these images. This month, we’re looking at maple syrup.
Children must think it’s some sort of sorcery as they gaze with wide-eyed wonderment as clear liquid from a tree becomes an amber syrup and then a sweet treat. A sugar-bush visit in March or April is a tradition in many parts of Canada and in Quebec, it’s part of the culture. Quebeckers consume maple syrup 7.8 times a month, more than anywhere else in Canada. In the photo above from last March, The Globe and Mail’s Christinne Muschi captures the sense of magic at the sugar shack of the 49-hectare Sucrerie de la Montagne in Rigaud, Que., which is recognized as a Quebec heritage site. Here, children taste maple taffy, which is produced after syrup is poured over ice. Artisanal syrup producers don’t boast the volume of their more industrial counterparts, but their small scale – and often old-fashioned methods of collection and production – enables a closer, friendlier approach for young children and their desire for sweets. Philip King
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