business watch jun 11

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This article was published 11/06/2010 (5591 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

‘Circuit breaker’ rules

WASHINGTON — U.S. federal regulators on Thursday put in place new rules aimed at preventing a repeat of last month’s harrowing “flash crash” in the stock market.

Members of the Securities and Exchange Commission approved the rules, which call for U.S. stock exchanges to briefly halt trading of some stocks that make big swings. The exchanges will start putting the trading breaks into effect as early as Friday for six months.

The plan for the “circuit breakers” was worked out by the SEC and the major exchanges following the May 6 market plunge that saw the Dow Jones industrials lose nearly 1,000 points in less than a half-hour.

Aussie consumers duped

AUSTRALIAN consumers have discovered they were buying a pig-in-a-poke for nearly two years after a record-setting court judgment this week revealed a major meat retailer had been falsely marketing Canadian bacon as Australian.

One of Australia’s largest food companies, Primo Smallgoods Ltd., has been handed an unprecedented fine — and a sharp rebuke by a state industry minister for its “deceptive” actions — after passing off tens of thousands of packages of imported Canadian bacon as “Made-in-Australia” meat.

GM to set stock schedule

WASHINGTON — General Motors Co., not the U.S. government, will determine when the automaker will conduct a public stock offering at the heart of the company’s revival, the Obama administration said Thursday.

The Treasury Department expects to sell some of its 61 per cent stake in GM when the automaker goes public. The initial public offering could happen as early as October.

Treasury provided guidance on how it intends to be involved in GM’s much-anticipated stock sale, which is expected to be among the largest initial public offerings in U.S. history. Transat sets up in Mexico

MONTREAL — Transat A.T. Inc. is setting up shop in Mexico this summer to help fill hotels during the off-season, but the travel company has no immediate plans to fly into the Canadian market until visa restrictions are eased.

In a couple of weeks, the Montreal-based company will begin operating in Monterrey under the Eleva Travel brand. It will cater to the two million Mexicans who travel in the summer months to several Mexican destinations as well as Las Vegas in the United States.

Transat owns three hotels in Cancun and contracts with other facilities in Puerto Vallarta, Acapulco, Los Cabos and Ixtapa.

Toymaker eyes recovery

MONTREAL — Toymaker Mega Brands hopes to make its recent travails a distant memory as it seeks to claw its way back to US$500 million in annual revenues within five years.

The maker of Mega Bloks construction toys broke a streak of 22 years of profitability in 2007. Sales sunk to US$339 million last year from a peak of $547 million in 2006.

But the company’s shareholders recently approved a recapitalization plan that reduced its debt by about US$286.6 million from the sale of equity to current major shareholders and new investors.

Pension reform urged

A new report from TD Economics warns that unless the pension system is reformed, a growing number of Canadians won’t have adequate income in retirement to maintain their standard of living.

The report released Thursday comes in advance of next week’s meeting of federal and provincial finance ministers in Prince Edward Island, where the retirement income system will be discussed.

“If we don’t see material changes within the next five years then we’re going to start running into greater risks that individuals are going to experience this decline in the standard of living,” said Craig Alexander, TD’s chief economist.

— From the news services