Bank of Montreal CEO Bill Downe to retire in October; successor is Darryl White + MORE Apr 7th

After more than a decade at the helm, the Bank of Montreal’s Bill Downe has announced plans to retire as CEO on Oct. 31.
He will be succeeded by Darryl White, who is currently the bank’s (TSX:BMO) chief operating officer.
In a statement issued Friday, BMO chairman Robert Prichard highlighted Downe’s efforts to transform the bank through investments in technology, as well as by improving the representation of women in senior leadership roles.
“Thanks to his leadership, the bank is in its strongest financial and strategic position in our history and well-positioned for future success,” Prichard said.
There has been a changing of the guard at Canada’s biggest banks over the past 3 1/2 years, with Royal Bank, TD Bank, Scotiabank and CIBC all appointing new chief executives.
With Downe set to retire, that leaves National Bank’s Louis Vachon as the last remaining big bank CEO who steered his company through the 2008 financial crisis.
White _ who will take over as CEO on Nov…

Last March, Canada’s unstoppable bull market in housing entered its eighth consecutive year since recovering from a brief downturn amid the global financial crisis. Even that contraction looks like a mere blip when viewed against the long-term trend. The country’s real estate market has been on a tear for nearly two decades, enriching homeowners, burdening new home-buyers with debt and alarming policymakers.
Here on the inside, it’s easy to become complacent and assume the current trends are normal, if not sustainable. But step back, and Canada’s monster housing market becomes all too apparent. One way to do that is to compare it to the United States. On a few key metrics, Canada has far surpassed the U.S. at its peak. As David Rosenberg, the chief economist at Gluskin Sheff told BNN Thursday, “This bubble is on par with what we had in the States back in ’05, ’06, ’07. We have to actually take a look at the situation. The housing market here is in a classic price bubble…

BNN'Cease and desist': Bay Street calls on Poloz to drop rate cut talk and take aim at housingBNNInterest rates might be too blunt a tool to cool the hot housing markets, but leading economists say the Bank of Canada is “certainly not powerless” when it comes to runaway real estate prices. The central bank will weigh in on the health of the …Bank of Canada unveils commemorative bank note to celebrate Canada's 150th anniversary of ConfederationOttawa Citizenall 24 news articles »

Toronto’s red-hot real estate market is getting even hotter and it’s spilling over into the rental market.
Reports of rents doubling have prompted fresh political debates over the issue of rent controls. Meanwhile, online rental search tools are getting increased attention —in Toronto and elsewhere—as a way to either make a tight market easier to manage, or as a factor that could put even more upward pressure on rents.
Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne has denounced rising rents as “unacceptable,” saying that the argument for a lack of rent control on new properities “doesn’t hold any water” with her. Her Liberal government is promising to soon bring in broader tenancy changes, which will include rent control.
The issue is contentious, and also confusing for tenants caught in the middle. This week, CIBC economist Benjamin Tal released a report arguing that rent controls actually create a rental property shortage. He argues that a lack of rent control on new properties encourages the construction of more rental units…

Eric Sprott will step down as chairman of Sprott Inc. as of May 10, when the fund company holds its annual meeting.
The Toronto-based asset management firm says it expects Jack Lee will become chairman of Sprott’s board, a role he has held previously while Sprott was president and CEO of Sprott Inc. (TSX:SII) and Sprott Asset Management Inc.
Eric Sprott, who founded Sprott Inc., is well-known in Toronto’s financial community for taking an unconventional approach by investing heavily in alternative assets such as precious metals and correctly anticipating changes in the market’s direction.
One publication labelled Sprott a “Bay Street wizard” after he summed up his opinion in two words: “Buy Gold.”
That was in September 2007, about a year before the collapse of Lehman Bros., one of the key triggers to the collapse of the U.S. banking industry.
In the years following the 2008-09 financial crisis, the price of gold soared to record highs, although it has pulled back since peaking at nearly US$1,900 an ounce in August 2011…