The Globe and Mail - 16.10.2019

BUSINESSCLASSIFIED

TOPLACEANADCALL:1- 866 -999-9 237
EMAIL:[email protected]

LEGALS

©2019Ernst&YoungInc.Allrightsreserved.

Notice is hereby given that the bankruptcy of Carrot Insights Inc.

occurred on the 6th day of October 2019 and that the First

Meeting of Creditors will be held on the 23rd day of October 2019

at the hour of 10:00 a.m. at the EY Tower, 100 Adelaide St. W.,

40th Floor Toronto, ON.

Dated at Toronto, Ontario this 16th day of October 2019.

EY Tower

100 Adelaide St. W.

Toronto, Ontario M5J 0B3

Contact: Franca Mazzulla

Telephone: 416 943-2202

Facsimile: 416 943 3300

Email: [email protected]

NOTICE TO CREDITORS

IN THE MATTER OF THE BANKRUPTCY OF

CARROT INSIGHTS INC

DIVIDENDS

Dividends

Notice is hereby given that the following dividend has been declared.

Issuer Issue RecordDate PayableDate Rate

Bombardier Inc. Preferred October 31, 2019 November 15, 2019 Floating

Series 2

MEETING NOTICES BUSINESS TO BUSINESS

MADALENA

ENERGYINC.

aFFouFcEsaFAFFual

aFdS0EcialMEEtiFg

omSha/EholdE/stobE

hEldNovEsbE/22,

2019.ThEREco/dDatE

isOctobE/ 23 ,2019.

INVESTMENTOPPORTUNITIES

Partner/Investor wantedto con-

vert urban retail/commercial

buildings to residential rentals.

Minimum $50k investment.

[email protected]

Reporton

Business

TOSUBSCRIBE1- 866 - 999 - 9237

TGAM.CA/SUBSCRIBE

B8| RE-ORTONBUSINESS O THEGLOBEANDMAIL| WEDNESDAY,OCTOBER16,2019

The U.S.-China trade war will cut
2019 global growth to its slowest
pace since the 2008-09 financial
crisis, the International Moneta-
ry Fund warned on Tuesday, but
said output would rebound if
their duelling tariffs were re-
moved.
The IMF said its latest World
Economic Outlook projections
show 2019 GDP growth at 3 per
cent, down from 3.2 per cent in a
July forecast, largely owing to in-
creasing fallout from global trade
friction.
The forecasts set a gloomy
backdrop for the IMF and World
Bank annual meetings this week
in Washington, the first for the
Fund’s new managing director,
Kristalina Georgieva. She is in-
heriting a range of problems,
from stagnating trade to unrest
in Ecuador and political backlash
in Argentina over IMF-mandated
austerity programs.
Without a nearly simultane-
ous easing of monetary policy by
major central banks, IMF chief
economist Gita Gopinath said
global growth would be half a
percentage point lower in 2019 –
at 2.5 per cent, teetering on the
edge of widespread recession.
“The weakness in growth is
driven by a sharp deterioration
in manufacturing activity and
global trade, with higher tariffs
and prolonged trade policy un-
certainty damaging investment
and demand for capital goods,”
Ms. Gopinath said.
The global crisis lender said
that by 2020, announced tariffs
would reduce global economic
output by 0.8 per cent. That
translates to a loss of about
US$700-billion – the equivalent
of making Switzerland’s econo-
my disappear.
The growth downgrade as-
sumes that all announced U.S.
tariffs on Chinese goods are put
in place, along with Chinese re-
taliation. These include a five-
percentage-point U.S. duty in-

crease on Chinese goods original-

ly scheduled for Tuesday and 10-

per-cent tariffs on US$156-billion

in Chinese goods scheduled for

Dec. 15.

If these incremental moves are

scrapped completely by a U.S.-

China trade deal, the global GDP

loss would shrink to 0.6 per cent,

Ms. Gopinath said. She added

that all output would rebound by

0.8 per cent if all U.S. and Chinese

tariffs were removed.

Services were still strong

across much of the world, but

there were some signs of soften-

ing in that sector in the United

States and Europe, the IMF said.

For 2020, the Fund said global

growth was set to pick up to 3.4

per cent owing to expectations of

better performances in Brazil,

Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia and

Turkey. But this forecast was a

10th of a point lower than in July

and was vulnerable to downside

risks, including worse trade ten-

sions, Brexit-related disruptions

and an abrupt aversion to risk in

financial markets.

If Britain were to leave the Eu-

ropean Union with no customs

deal in place, it would cut Bri-

tain’s GDP output level by as

much as 5 per cent in the next

two years and 3 per cent in the

longer term, Ms. Gopinath said.

The World Economic Outlook

report spells out in sharp detail

the economic difficulties caused

by the U.S.-China tariffs, includ-

ing direct costs, market turmoil,

reduced investment and lower

productivity owing to supply

chain disruptions.

The IMF said foreign direct in-

vestment abroad by advanced

economies came to “a virtual

standstill” in 2018 after increas-

ing in earlier years to average

more than 3 per cent of global

gross domestic product annually

• or more than US$1.8-trillion.
  The institution said the de-
  cline of some US$1.5-trillion be-
  tween 2017 and 2018 reflected
  purely financial operations by
  large multinational corpora-
  tions, including in response to
  changes in U.S. tax law.
  Global vehicle purchases fell
  by 3 per cent in 2018, reflecting a

drop in demand in China after

expiration of tax incentives and

production adjustments after

adoption of new emissions stan-

dards in Germany and other euro

zone countries.

Global trade growth reached

just 1 per cent in the first half of

2019, the weakest level since

2012, weighed down by higher

tariffs and prolonged uncertainty

about trade policies, as well as a

slump in the automobile indus-

try.

After expanding by 3.6 per

cent in 2018, the IMF now pro-

jects global trade volume will in-

crease just 1.1 per cent in 2019, 1.4

percentage points less than it

forecast in July and 2.3 percent-

age points less than forecast in

April.

Trade growth was expected to

rebound to 3.2 per cent in 2020,

however risks remained “skewed

to the downside,” the IMF said,

with a significant drag on both

the U.S. and Chinese economies.

New IMF projections show

China’s GDP output falling 2 per

cent in the near term under the

current tariff scenario and 1 per

cent in the long term, while U.S.

output would decline 0.6 per

cent over both time spans.

“To rejuvenate growth, policy-

makers must undo the trade bar-

riers put in place with durable

agreements, rein in geopolitical

tensions and reduce domestic

policy uncertainty,” Ms. Gopi-

nath said.

But she was cautious about

U.S. President Donald Trump’s

announcement on Friday about

the first phase of a U.S. trade deal

with China, saying that more de-

tails were needed about the “ten-

tative” deal.

The IMF also modelled what

would happen if multinational

firms in the United States, euro

zone and Japan reshored enough

production to reduce nominal

imports by 10 per cent. The lend-

er found that it would drive up

consumer prices and reduce do-

mestic demand, while throttling

the spread of technology to

emerging economies.

REUTERS

U.S.-China spatrisksslowergrowth,IMFsays

Organizationcutsglobal

GDPoutlookfor2019

to3%from3.2%,largely

overtariff-warfallout

DAVIDLAWDER
ANDREASHALALWASHINGTON

IMFchiefeconomistGitaGopinath,seeninWashingtononTuesday,saysthatwithoutanearlysimultaneouseasingofmonetarypolicybybigcentral

banks,globalgrowthwouldfallto2.5percentin2019,teeteringontheedgeofwidespreadrecession.OLI9IERDOULIERY/AFP9IAGETTYIMAGES

Royal Dutch Shell PLCstill sees abundant op-

portunity to make money from oil and gas in

coming decades even as investors and govern-

ments increase pressure on energy companies

over climate change, its chief executive said.

But in an interview with Reuters, Ben van

Beurden expressed concern that some share-

holders could abandon the world’s second-

largest listed energy company owing partly to

what he called the “demonization” of oil and

gas and “unjustified” worries that its business

model was unsustainable.

The 61-year-old Dutch executive in recent

years became one of the sector’s most promi-

nent voices advocating action over global

warming in the wake of the 2015 Paris climate

agreement.

Shell, which supplies around 3 per cent of

the world’s energy, set out in 2017

a plan to halve the intensity of its

greenhouse emissions by the

middle of the century, based in

large part on building one of the

world’s biggest power businesses.

Still, the amount of carbon

dioxide emitted from Shell’s op-

erations and the products it sells

rose by 2.5 per cent between 2017

and 2018.

A defiant Mr. van Beurden re-

jected a rising chorus from cli-

mate activists and parts of the in-

vestor community to transform

radically the 112-year-old Anglo-

Dutch company’s traditional business model.

“Despite what a lot of activists say, it is en-

tirely legitimate to invest in oil and gas because

the world demands it,” Mr. van Beurden said.

“We have no choice” but to invest in long-life

projects, he added.

Shell and its peers have long insisted that

switching away from oil and gas to cleaner

sources of energy will take decades as demand

for transport and plastics continues to in-

crease. Investors have warned, however, that

oil companies often rely on forecasts that un-

derestimate the pace of change.

Shell plans to green-light more than 35 new

oil and gas projects by 2025, according to an

investor presentation from June.

Oil and gas remain the backbone of profits

for Shell, the largest listed company on Lon-

don’s main FTSE index.

While oil and gas account for the entirety of

Shell’s free cash flow today, it foresees a gradu-

al diversification over the next two decades. Oil

and gas are each still expected to provide a

third of free cash flow, however, with the rest

coming from power and chemicals.

Many oil and gas projects such as gas-proc-

essing plants, deepwater platforms or chemical

plants take billions of dollars to develop and

operate for decades.

Shell, like many rivals, has become more se-

lective in its investments as the outlook for oil

prices and demand remains unclear. It targets

new projects that can be profitable at oil prices

of US$20 to US$30 a barrel and which emit rel-

atively low greenhouse emissions. Oil is trad-

ing at around US$60 a barrel.

“We can sustain an upstream portfolio all

the way into the 2030s if there is an economic

rationale for doing that and a societal rationale

for doing that,” Mr. van Beurden said.

“Fortunately enough, we have more of those

than we have money to spend on them.”

Mr. van Beurden rejected as a “red herring”

arguments that Shell’s oil and gas reserves,

which can sustain its current production for

around eight years, would be economically un-

viable, or stranded, in the future.

A lack of investment in oil and gas projects

could lead to a supply shortage

and result in price spikes, he said.

“One of the bigger risks is not

so much that we will become di-

nosaurs because we are still in-

vesting in oil and gas when there

is no need for it any more. A big-

ger risk is prematurely turning

your back on oil and gas.”

Shell plans to increase its an-

nual spending to around US$32-

billion by 2025 from the current

$25-billion, with up to one-10th

allocated to renewables and the

power business.

The company, the world’s

largest dividend payer, plans to return US$125-

billion to shareholders in the five years to 2025.

On liquefied natural gas, of which Shell is

the world’s biggest trader, Mr. van Beurden

said the market would exhibit oversupply in

the near term. “But [LNG] demand will contin-

ue to grow at a pace that is roughly four times

that of oil,” he said.

Shell has become a focal point of environ-

mental protests, particularly in Europe, with

regular demonstrations outside its London

headquarters and the British National Theatre

dropping Shell’s sponsorship in recent

months.

At the same time, investors have sharply in-

creased their scrutiny of companies’ environ-

mental performance.

Amid increasing uncertainty over future de-

mand, the share prices of Shell and its peers

have underperformed relative to other sectors.

Mr. van Beurden expressed concern that

some investors could ditch Shell, acknowledg-

ing that shares in the company were trading at

a discount partly owing to “societal risk.”

REUTERS

Oilandgastoofferopportunities

fordecadestocome,ShellCEOsays

RONBOUSSO

DMITRYZHDANNIKOVLONDON

Shellanditspeers

havelonginsisted

thatswitchingaway

fromoilandgasto

cleanersourcesof

energywilltake

decadesasdemand

fortransportand

plasticscontinues

toincrease.