RBC’s Dave McKay named Outstanding CEO of the Year

Good morning! In this week’s newsletter, Stephanie Hughes profiles Canada’s Outstanding CEO of the Year, Barbara Shecter gets to the bottom of the missing pension billions and The Financial Times on the last hours of FTX.

— Joe Hood, Managing Editor, Financial Post

RBC’s Dave McKay named Canada’s Outstanding CEO of the Year

Bank CEOs have a reputation for being a cautious bunch. Leave it to RBC’s Dave McKay to buck the trend. Newly honoured as Canada’s Outstanding CEO of the Year for 2023, McKay loves basketball and guitar (Pearl Jam is his favourite band) and decided early on in his career that he was going to make a virtue of taking big risks, a move that attracted others who thought the same way. “I set a bold ambition, and I declared that bold ambition,” he told Stephanie Hughes in a profile to mark the award. With a new acquisition (HSBC Canada) to integrate and economic headwinds to navigate, there’s no slowing down the leader of Canada’s largest company.

LEADING FROM THE FRONT

Pensions sitting on $3 billion for ‘missing’ beneficiaries in Ontario

For years the Bank of Canada has offered Canadians a way to check if they have money sitting in a dormant bank account. But as Barbara Shecter revealed this week, there is no such mechanism in place to find unclaimed pension amounts. And, it turns out, there is a lot of cash piling up there. In Ontario alone, pension plans are sitting on at least $3 billion that belongs to 175,000 people they are unable to locate. Some may have passed away without claiming their pension benefits, while others may be retired but unaware they are entitled to the savings. Still others are in the workforce but have switched jobs and changed addresses. “We’re getting a better sense of how big this issue is,” the province’s pension regulator told Shecter. While they are looking for a solution, for now they are urging workers to keep their contact information up to date.

MISSING MONEY

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The bizarre and brutal final hours of crypto exchange FTX  

Sam Bankman-Fried went from being the crypto world’s unlikely hero to its irredeemable villain in a matter of months last year. But just what happened as the money ran out and authorities closed in on his crypto empire, FTX? The Financial Times’s Joshua Oliver interviewed SBF and others familiar with events to produce the most detailed account yet of the company’s final hours, from the first realization that there was a bankruptcy-sized hole in its finances to SBF’s eventual arrest on fraud charges. As the magnitude of the company’s problems became known and SBFs inability to solve them and potential culpability became clear, his colleagues, many of them long-time friends, began to desert him. We’ve broken this can’t-miss tale down into three parts, below.

END GAME

Part 1: ‘Sam? Are you there?!’ 

Part 2: ‘I am deeply sorry that we got into this place:’  

Part 3: A general without an army

CIBC’s Dodig warns Canada risks ‘largest social crisis’ if housing supply, immigration don’t match 

Insurer Intact Financial is still betting on Canada for acquisitions and growth

Half of Ontario insolvencies filed by millennials 

CPP Investments reports 1.9% return, $7B net assets increase in Q3 

Tax group calls for windfall tax on companies that paid out dividends while receiving CEWS 

The FP Finance Newsletter was compiled by FP Managing Editor Joe Hood. Reporters Barbara Shecter and Stephanie Hughes go where the action is. Designer Gigi Suhanic made it look great and web editors Pamela Heaven, Victoria Wells and Noella Ovid contributed at every step along the way.

Do you work in Finance? Do you have a tip? In between Zoom calls, let Barbara or Stephanie know what’s up.

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