Big banks fined more than $5B for rigging currency markets – CTV News + MORE May 20th

At the most recent meeting of the Decumulation Institute (see decumulation.ca), consultant Don Ezra unveiled a useful concept called “wealth zones.”
He showed a simple drawing of an ordinary detached home, with a basement, three stories and an attic. The labels he attached to each of these levels is a good way for near-retirees to start thinking about the inevitable transition they’ll have to make from wealth accumulation to wealth decumulation.
In the basement is something Ezra calls pre-annuitized wealth, which are the normal employer DB pensions or government pensions that most people don’t usually view as wealth. But of course once you start to draw down on CPP, OAS or in some cases the GIS, these are sources of regular income that become wealth once they’re in your hands.
The ground floor Ezra terms the essentials zone, although he adds that in some cases this too may actually turn out to be below the surface. The essentials zone refers to a level of wealth that is merely enough to annuitize or support life’s essentials: food, heat and utilities, rent or mortgage, etc…

TORONTO – When Toronto actor Shawn Ahmed asked his bank for a mortgage in early 2013, he ran up against the lending policies that some say are shutting young contract workers out of the loans market altogether.
Ahmed was drawing a full-time salary working in sales for a theatre company and, at 27, had already appeared in numerous TV shows and movies including the sixth chapter of the Saw franchise.
But TD Bank and then PC Financial turned down his applications because he didn’t fit their framework for an ideal borrower, Ahmed said.
One bank wanted him to prove four years of salary at the same job, he said, and both institutions told him from the beginning that any mortgage would probably be less than he wanted.
“The process wasn’t exactly hard. It wasn’t difficult to be rejected,” Ahmed said. “I was never going to get a mortgage for a place I actually wanted to live.”
He turned to private lender RCI Capital on the recommendation of his real-estate agent, and signed the papers for a mortgage on a one-bedroom condo in Toronto’s Regent Park neighbourhood in July 2014…

General Fusion plasma injector at the company’s Burnaby, B.C. facility. (General Fusion)
Canadian alternative energy company General Fusion has just completed its largest round of fundraising to date, in the amount of $27 million. The new funding, led by Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, brings the Burnaby, B.C.-based firm’s total venture capital raised to more than $100 million.
According to CEO Nathan Gilliland, General Fusion executives first met with representatives of Khazanah Nasional Berhad at an awards ceremony in Vancouver last year. Coming from a country rich in fossil fuels, “They had a real interest in developing clean, alternative sources of energy,” he says.
Other participants in this round of financing include existing backers Bezos Expeditions, Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital, Braemar Energy Ventures, Entrepreneurs Fund, SET Ventures, BDC and Cenovus Energy Inc. Gilliland said some smaller new investors also took part, and there will be a second closing of the round towards the end of the summer offering additional investors the opportunity to participate…

CTV NewsBig banks fined more than $5B for rigging currency marketsCTV NewsWASHINGTON — A group of global banks will pay more than $5 billion in penalties and plead guilty to rigging the world's currency market, the first time in more than two decades that major players in the financial industry have admitted to criminal wrongdoing.6 big US, UK banks to pay $5.6B in fines in regulatory probeCBC.caFive global banks to pay $5.7 billion in fines over rate riggingReuters CanadaFive banks plead guilty to market manipulation, fined $5.7 billionLos Angeles TimesBBC News -The Star Onlineall 501 news articles »

PARIS – Altice SA says it’s buying a controlling stake in Suddenlink Communications in a deal that values the Missouri-based cable TV provider at $9.1 billion.
The Luxembourg-based cable and mobile phone operator says in a statement Wednesday it will purchase 70 per cent of Suddenlink with a combined debt and cash offer from existing owners BC Partners and CPP Investment Board, and company management.
Suddenlink serves cable subscribers in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.
The deal marks Altice’s entry into the U.S. market. It already has operations in France, Belgium, Portugal, Switzerland, Israel and elsewhere.
It expects the deal to be completed by the end of the year.
The post Altice to enter US broadband market with $9.1 billion purchase of Missouri’s Suddenlink appeared first on Canadian Business – Your Source For Business News.