A shipment of 30,000 tonnes of potash from the Belarusian Potash Company is due to arrive at a New Orleans port by mid-October as President Donald Trump seeks to restore diplomatic relations with the Russian ally—and, amid trade tensions with Canada, muses about diversifying where the U.S. gets the key fertilizer ingredient. (Financial Times)
Interest rate uncertainty and fluctuations in the bond market have been a challenge for housing developers, including Crown corporation Build Canada Homes, Ana Bailão, the agency’s CEO, said at an Empire Club of Canada event in Toronto on Friday. Thin margins on affordable housing builds have made those projects particularly vulnerable to market volatility, she said. (The Logic)
Though Prime Minister Mark Carney said he will use “the fullest extent of the law” to hold the steel company to its commitments, chief executive Lourenco Goncalves said that his company’s plans to lay off 500 workers were caused by issues beyond his control. (The Globe and Mail)
The Bank of Canada published background material on its most ambitious attempt to use math and computing power to create a schematic of the economy. Governor Tiff Macklem parked older models last month. Prima’s official debut will be at the central bank’s next interest rate decision on Oct. 28. (The Logic)
The company went public after finishing its merger with Viking Acquisition Corp. I, a special-purpose acquisition company that listed on the New York Stock Exchange last year. (The Logic)
Atul Tiwari’s company VerdX has applied to become Canada’s first investment dealer with an exclusive focus on prediction markets, which let users bet on the outcome of real-world events. (The Logic)
The Weston family, which controls Shoppers Drug Mart, is said to be in talks to buy Boots for US$9 billion including debt through its investment arm, Wittington Investments. Boots is currently owned by private equity firm Sycamore Partners. The companies have not yet commented publicly on the potential for a merger. (The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times)
The LGBTQ+ dating app has agreed to buy the parent company of Freddie, an HIV-prevention care provider. Grindr will pay US$190 million in cash and US$60 million in the company’s common stock. Grindr may also pay up to US$70 million more if PurposeMed meets certain performance milestones next year. (The Logic)
A sweeping new partnership with the European Union would let Canadian tech firms bid on sensitive and critical infrastructure contracts otherwise off-limits to companies outside the 27-nation bloc, according to a leaked draft joint statement by Ottawa and Brussels. (Politico, The Logic)
Transluce, a San Francisco-based research non-profit, said it had found evidence of “a series of apparently failed rudimentary hacking attempts” on the federal agency in May and June. Transluce said the activity was consistent with that of OpenAI’s models around the same time, but did not directly blame the ChatGPT maker. (The Logic)